


Lapis Tech Mogul

by wheel_pen



Category: Steve Jobs - Fandom, X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 10:08:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 54,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7613953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik Lehnsherr is an arrogant, visionary pioneer in the nascent computer industry. To suit his controlling nature, he decides to purchase a slave, a blue-eyed Scottish lad whom he names Lapis (played by Charles Xavier/James McAvoy). Inspired by the movie Steve Jobs (with Michael Fassbender).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lapis Tech Mogul

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored; that's just how I do things. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

_~*~*~ Lapis@18 ~*~*~_

Erik was in the mood to buy; that’s why one went to these kinds of places, after all. “I’m really uncomfortable here,” Grace told him, not for the first time.

“I don’t know why,” he admitted, taking a sip of champagne.

“Why do you have to get a—“ Her voice dropped to a whisper. “—a slave?” She glanced around at the well-dressed party attendees as if nervous they would overhear and be offended. “It’s not like you have trouble finding girlfriends.”

“Yeah, but they don’t like it when I tell them what to do,” Erik noted, always mystified by this. Or rather, _not_ , because _he_ didn’t want anyone to tell him what to do, but not everyone could be a leader. “A slave _has_ to do what I tell them. I don’t know why I never thought of this before.” It was really a perfect fit for him.

“Maybe because it’s morally corrupting?” Grace hissed, even as she smiled and nodded at one of the hosts who passed by, checking on them.

“Probably too late to worry about that,” Erik quipped. “Relax! I’ll probably sell them in a year when I get bored.”

“It’d be amazing if they lasted a year, if that’s your criteria,” Grace grumbled.

Erik had stopped listening to her, though. He’d been tracking one of the waiters who was circling the room with a tray of champagne, and he decided that now was the time to move in. “Excuse me,” he told Grace (otherwise she would follow), set his glass down, and made a beeline for the waiter, intercepting him so abruptly he had to pull up short to avoid a collision.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said deferentially, checking that the glasses on his tray were intact. He was even younger-looking up close, but surely he had to be legal. He had vibrant blue eyes and full, cherry-red lips, which seemed like they ought to be false-colored but weren’t.

“Would you like a glass of champagne, sir?” he asked, since Erik was just standing in his way, staring at him.

“No.” He had freckles, too, pale ones you could only see up close, and there was a hint of red in his dark hair. High cheekbones, too. Why was it considered attractive to have prominent bones? You never said, ‘She’s so hot, look at her pointy elbows.’

“I could get you something else from the bar,” the boy offered, clearly getting a weird vibe from Erik’s scrutiny.

“No. Put that tray down and talk to me,” Erik commanded.

“Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” the boy answered brightly. “I’m just the waiter, I’m not for sale.”

“Are you a slave?”

“Yes, sir—“

“Then you’re for sale,” Erik concluded pragmatically. “Put the tray down.”

The boy’s gaze dropped, somewhat defeated, and Erik didn’t like that. His eyes looked better when they were more sparkly. He put the tray down, though. “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir,” Erik corrected. “Sit down here.” They took positions on a nearby couch, the boy’s posture growing stiffer and more awkward the longer Erik studied him. “You have a funny accent,” Erik finally observed. “Where are you from?”

“Scotland, sir—sorry,” he apologized. Erik supposed it was an automatic response that would take time to recalibrate.

“Scotland. How did you get to America?” Erik quizzed.

“I’m here with my master, he’s on holiday,” the boy answered. “He went up the mountain to ski for a few days, and since I’m not allowed to ski, he loaned me to the hotel, to keep me out of trouble.” He shut his mouth abruptly, as if worried he’d said too much, but Erik liked the way he talked.

“Why aren’t you allowed to ski?” he wanted to know.

“Doctor’s orders,” the slave replied, a bit uncomfortably. Unconsciously his hand went to his left side. “I have a broken rib. Well, it’s almost healed now,” he amended.

“Are you okay sitting that way?” Erik questioned, noting his slightly twisted posture. “Get more comfortable. Lean back.”

He _must_ have been feeling the twinge, because he immediately changed how he sat, curling one leg up on the couch cushion and bracing his elbow against the back. “Thank you, s—“ He cut himself off faster this time.

“You can call me Erik,” Erik allowed. “That’s Erik with a K, that’s very important.”

“Erik,” the boy repeated, putting more emphasis on the K. He had a slightly cheeky grin, which Erik responded to.

“How did you break your rib?” Erik asked, and the grin vanished.

“Um, well, I—“ he hesitated.

“I’m sure it’s not difficult to remember or explain,” Erik prompted.

“I got kicked,” the boy finally said, checking Erik’s response as though he might be mad at him.

“Someone kicked you,” Erik rephrased, which was a subtle but important difference, and the boy nodded. “Someone kicked you hard enough to break your rib.”

“My master,” the slave admitted. He did not seem to find this behavior shocking, which told Erik all he needed to know about this master. Violence was about losing control, and Erik never lost control.

“You have freckles,” he noted, and the boy rubbed the ones on his nose self-consciously.

“Yeah.”

“And your eyes are pretty.”

“Thank you, Erik.” The boy’s tone was flirtatious, while Erik’s had been matter-of-fact. Then his eyes skittered over Erik’s shoulder and widened slightly in alarm, and he started to get up. “Sorry, my supervisor—“

Erik put one hand on his thigh and another on the back of his neck, to keep him on the couch while pulling him forward, and kissed him. It was just lips pressed against lips, Erik’s fingers caressing his hair, the boy surprised and seemingly afraid to move. Then suddenly he relaxed and things became a little more interesting. Then he hissed sharply and pulled back, hand going to his side again.

Erik’s followed. “S—t. Are you okay?” he checked. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you—“

“No, it’s okay,” the boy claimed, letting out a breath. Erik could feel his ribs move under his hand—the way ribs were _supposed_ to move, he assumed, not broken ones. “I just leaned wrong—“

“Well lean correctly next time,” Erik advised, “because I liked kissing you and plan to do it again. Even though your lips are chapped. Do you want to switch places?”

“No, I’m okay,” the boy insisted, though Erik didn’t entirely trust his judgment now. “Thank you, though, Erik.” He seemed genuinely grateful for the offer, as well as polite, which people said was important. Erik let his hand drop away to his thigh and the boy’s eyes darted over his shoulder again.

“Don’t look out there, look at me,” Erik instructed, and his eyes snapped back. “Is your supervisor still watching?”

The boy’s eyes stayed on Erik, an admirable show of obedience. “No, she went away.”

“Good.” Erik relaxed deliberately, hoping the boy would do the same. “How much are you worth?”

“Very little, according to my master,” the slave replied dryly, and Erik smirked a little. But then he seemed to realize this was a serious business question and sobered. “But, um, he—my master—he’s very…” Erik raised an eyebrow expectantly. “I don’t think he would want to sell me,” he confessed in a rush.

“I don’t care about that,” Erik informed him. “Do you want to be bought? By me. Maybe you don’t want to leave him,” he allowed, when the boy hesitated. This would be disappointing, and irrational given the broken rib. “How long have you been with him?”

“Eleven years.”

“S—t,” Erik commented, and the slave nodded.

“Yeah.” His tone seemed slightly disbelieving, in a bad way, which Erik took as a good sign for his cause.

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“Do you exercise?” Erik checked. “I would want you to stay active.”

“Well, I usually do chores around the house and grounds,” the boy described, which Erik thought was rather a waste. “That’s pretty labor-intensive.”

“The bedroom, too?”

The boy flushed slightly. “Yes.”

“Good. Come here.” Erik kissed him again, this time trying to make sure he leaned properly and didn’t strain anything. He seemed to know what he was doing in this area, which was efficient. For a moment—just a moment, but that was a lot—Erik’s brain seemed to shut off, or rather he lost a sense of time, during which he and the boy became more intimately entwined than Erik would normally be at a cocktail party. That was remarkable, and Erik pulled back to give this some thought, his eyes resting on the boy’s lips. “Your lips are still chapped,” he pointed out. “Don’t you have any chapstick?”

“No, sorry.”

Well, that was easily solved later. “So do you want to leave your master and come with me?” Erik asked again. He really thought the answer was yes, but the slave couldn’t quite bring himself to say it yet.

“Are you—are you really going to try and buy me from him?” he asked, with some disbelief. Not in Erik’s veracity, merely in the universe’s willingness to allow this to happen.

“No,” Erik clarified, “I’m not going to _try_ , I’m _actually_ going to buy you. If you want to be bought. What’s your master’s name?”

“Angus MacAlistair,” the boy answered, and Erik snorted.

“Seriously? That’s the most fake Scottish name I’ve ever heard,” he judged, and the boy chuckled a little too. “This is the last time I’m going to ask you,” Erik went on. “If you don’t say yes I’ll assume the answer’s no. Do you want to—“

“Yes,” the slave blurted, as though he couldn’t help himself, and then was ashamed of his outburst, staring at his hands in his lap.

Erik slipped his hand into one of them and tilted the boy’s chin up to meet his gaze. “Okay then. I’m going to contact your master and buy you.” He smiled slowly, enjoying the thought of the boy in his possession. Though contrarily the slave seemed anxious now, which was something Erik had no time for. “What’s your ID number?”

“It’s—Do you want me to write it down?” the boy suggested.

For a moment Erik was mildly insulted, then he recalled that most people couldn’t retain numbers. “No, I’ll remember,” he promised.

“It’s Y226783,” the slave recited, and Erik committed this to memory. “My name is—“

“I don’t care what he calls you, I’m going to change it,” Erik informed him. He was really looking forward to this part, coming up with the perfect appellation for his new acquisition.

The boy clearly didn’t know how to take this. “Oh. Okay.”

“Don’t worry,” Erik assured him, squeezing his hand. “I’m not going to forget and buy the wrong person.”

This made the boy smile a little. “No, I guess not.”

Erik finally tore his eyes off the boy and looked around, spotting Grace lurking at a discreet distance but watching him like a hawk, her usual expression of disapproval evident. “That’s my assistant, Grace,” he pointed out. “Where’s your master staying?”

“The Chopard, in Pine Slope,” the boy replied. “Are you really—“ He cut himself off, looking anywhere but at Erik.

A sudden lifestyle change after eleven years probably _was_ confusing, or overwhelming, or something, Erik thought; he would have to ask Grace about the right word later. He couldn’t spend all his time reassuring people, though—he had a ridiculously-named Scotsman to find, who apparently might be a little tough at the negotiating table. No matter—no one was more stubborn than Erik when it came to something he wanted. And he wanted this boy a great deal.

“I’ll see you later,” he said, and stood with some regret—he could have spoken to the boy longer, but there would be time for that later. Still, their hands lingered as they pulled apart.

“Goodbye, Erik,” the boy said, and he really sounded like he thought he would never see Erik again.

Well, he was wrong about that, and Erik was right, and he had just better get used to that.

**

He sat in his room in the hotel’s slave quarters, his small suitcase beside him, its contents neatly packed. He was waiting for his new master to arrive to pick him up, strictly confined to his room until then, lest the stress of this transition period tempt him to make a break for it.

But he wasn’t tempted; he had always been a slave, and he didn’t know what he would do with himself if he wasn’t. Dreaming of being free was like dreaming of being a lost prince, or fantastically wealthy: entertaining for a while, ultimately depressing, utterly unrealizable.

He really hadn’t thought this man, Erik, would go through with the sale. Oh, he had confidence enough, arrogance really, but that didn’t automatically mean he could persuade Mr. MacAlistair to sell Ch—No, he wasn’t supposed to use that name anymore, he reminded himself. Erik—Mr. Lehnsherr?—had been very clear that he would be picking out a new one, to put his own stamp on his new slave.

That was better than an _actual_ stamp or brand, anyway, like in the old days.

So right at this moment, he was nameless, which was a curious sensation, because somehow Mr. Lehnsherr had persuaded his previous master to sell him—over the phone and in a foreign country, no less! What did that say about Mr. Lehnsherr? One had to use every clue at one’s disposal to form a picture of one’s master, what he wanted, what he hated. Mr. Lehnsherr had seemed charming when they met, concerned about him—but charm could be a trap, and people were often concerned about their pets or cars. Didn’t mean they couldn’t turn on them, if the pets or cars did something wrong.

He shifted in his seat and felt his ribs twinge, and rubbed his side. He was not sad to leave his old master—he had made that choice known, when Mr. Lehnsherr so curiously insisted on asking him. But there was something terrifying—terrifying, and also a bit thrilling—about venturing into the unknown, to be at the mercy of someone whose moods and tendencies were as yet a mystery. Mostly terrifying. But with a strong underlying hope that _maybe_ , maybe things would be better.

A knock on the door made him jump. Was it time? His heart pounded and his breath came faster as he forced himself up and hurried across the small room to open the door, which was already being thumped a second time.

Erik stood on the other side. Nice clothes—expensive but casual. Trim build, but with muscles—someone who led an active lifestyle. He was strikingly handsome, not smooth and friendly like a movie star, though—there was an angularity about his face that gave it a certain harshness, a dangerous intelligence and determination. And his eyes—they darted over his new slave, taking in every detail, searing through the outer layers to examine what was beneath. What would he find there, the teen wondered with a sudden panic. Would it be something worthwhile? He desperately hoped so.

“What the h—l are you doing down here?” Erik asked him, with slight irritation. “I had to walk through a _boiler room_ to get here—which was kind of interesting, but very poorly designed, very inefficient.” The slave who had guided him there hovered at the end of the hall.

“Um, sorry,” the teen replied, not sure what else to say. “It’s the hotel slave quarters,” he added at Erik’s expectant look. “They just put us wherever there’s room.”

Erik rolled his eyes at this and stepped through the doorway, forcing the slave to back up. He should have _invited_ him in—or maybe Erik would want to leave right away—

“You’re ready to go?” Erik checked. “Your previous master told you what’s going on?”

“Yes, we spoke on the phone,” he confirmed. “I-I’m so impressed you got him to sell me.”

“Wasn’t hard,” Erik dismissed.

“Oh.” Well, it wasn’t as if he’d _wanted_ Mr. MacAlistair to be more attached to him—

“You know, he’s been having some trouble with his finances, since his holding companies have lost value in the market fluctuations,” Erik explained, as if all these words were normal for him. He was staring curiously around the small room at the same time. “Do you share this with anyone? Do you have your own bathroom?”

The teen shut the door, slightly disoriented by the change in subject. “No, to both questions,” he replied. “I didn’t know my master was having financial trouble—“

“ _Former_ master,” Erik cut in swiftly.

“Yes, of course,” he agreed immediately, kicking himself. “Sorry, sir.” He took a breath and corrected, “Erik. Is that what you still want me to call you?” he checked.

“That’s still my name,” Erik confirmed. “Do you get a lot of noise from the mechanical room in here at night? The air feels dry, no wonder your lips are chapped.” Before he could respond Erik went on, “Let me tell you what your new name is, so you can get used to it. Grace thinks it’s weird, but I’ve been saying it a lot to myself and it sounds perfectly normal to me now.”

“Okay,” the teen agreed, because what else could he do? He was still stuck on his former master having money problems—maybe he _had_ heard rumors about that, but it was hard to know whether something was based on fact or just meanness. And then he wondered just _how_ much money Erik had offered for him, that it would make a difference to Mr. MacAlistair.

Erik had sat down on the edge of the bed and expected the slave to join him, so he did. “I’m going to give you the origin story,” he prefaced, “so you’ll realize I took this seriously. I went to a bookstore in town and looked at some baby name books—and let me tell you, there are some _weird_ people who hang out in the baby name book section,” he claimed. “Also, here’s a tip: You should never ask a woman if she’s pregnant, no matter how logical it seems, because that implies she’s fat. Did you know that already?”

“Er, yes,” the teen replied, since it looked like he was supposed to respond now.

“Oh.” Erik had clearly been operating under the assumption that this was obscure information. The teen was beginning to feel there might be a lot of things that fell into this category for Erik. “Are you comfortable sitting like that?” Erik asked. “You can move if you want.”

“Is this going to be a long story?” the slave ventured.

“It’s looking that way,” Erik confirmed, so the slave repositioned himself to lean against the headboard. “I didn’t think it was that long before. This bed is really uncomfortable,” he added, moving up next to the slave.

“Yeah, they just give us basic stuff,” the teen agreed. He was rather eager to know what name Erik had chosen, but obviously Erik had his own timeline he was going to stick to.

“Anyway, baby name books seemed a sensible place to begin research,” Erik continued, “but ultimately they were not very helpful. Mainly those books are full of everyday, common names that everyone knows.” Erik was clearly looking for something more unique, and the teen began to get a little nervous. Some slaves were saddled with really awful names, like Sugar, Phoenix, or Apollo, because their masters thought they sounded cute or cool.

“So I started looking at other sections,” Erik went on, “but I’ll skip the details because I really don’t like this room. Have you had lunch?”

Erik was obviously capable of thinking of many different things at once, which was a little confusing. “Yes, I had lunch,” the slave confirmed, “and we can leave whenever you want, I think.”

“No, I want to tell you your name first,” Erik insisted, “so that once we’re out I can use it and you’ll know I’m talking to you. It’s just important, and it deserves a big build-up.”

The slave smiled a little. “Yes, it _is_ important, isn’t it?” he agreed. “I’ve had the same name for eleven years, and before that I had a different one. The switch was very confusing, for a child.”

“Well, I expect you to learn it pretty quickly this time,” Erik warned. “You can read and write, can’t you?”

“Oh, sure,” the teen promised. “Well, I’m okay,” he qualified, trying to be more accurate. “I haven’t had much formal schooling, and my former master”—he stumbled over this phrase only a little bit—“didn’t encourage slaves to read much.”

“Well, I’m going to show you how to spell your name,” Erik promised, “and if you need to practice it, that’s fine, but you’d better get it right because it’s embarrassing otherwise.”

“Of course,” the teen assured him. “I’ll make sure I get it right. As soon as I know what it is,” he dared to add.

“Don’t rush,” Erik warned. “Anyway, I found this book about gemstones and minerals,” he continued unexpectedly, pulling a pocket guide from his jacket. “Come here and look at the pictures.” The slave scooted closer until he could see the book well, Erik flipping through the beauty shots of exotic stones.

“I wanted to find something that matched your eyes, because they’re so pretty,” Erik went on. His tone was very flat and matter-of-fact, but the slave smiled at him anyway.

“Thank you, Erik.”

“Here’s the section on blue stones.” Erik held the book open. “The problem is, a lot of these don’t make good names for people, even if the rocks are the right color. Orthoclase? Amazonite? Azurite? Doesn’t really work.” The slave nodded, though at this point he had no idea what Erik would consider proper for a name. “Turquoise was a possibility,” Erik mused. He held the picture up to the slave’s face, as if comparing the colors. “But turquoise has more green in it. And ‘sapphire’ is too girly a name, I think.” The slave nodded quickly—lucky break there.

“But then I came upon _this_ ,” Erik announced proudly, turning to another page. The stone displayed was a bright sky blue, though mottled with other colors. “Lapis lazuli, also known as lazurite.” Again he held the book up to the slave’s face. “Yes, it’s a perfect match. I thought so. So I’m going to call you Lapis.”

“Lapis?” the slave repeated. It was a short _a_ like in _lap_ , followed by _iss_ as in _miss_ , or another unsavory word suggested by the _p_. Erik was obviously not getting the reaction he wanted and the slave tried to sound more upbeat. “Lapis. Lapis.”

“Yeah, Grace doesn’t like it,” Erik admitted, but this obviously was not a deterrent. “It’s accurate, though, and memorable, and unique, but with meaning. When people say ‘Lapis’ they’ll immediately picture _you_. They’ll associate it with all of your notable qualities. No one will be saying, ‘Which Lapis? Lapis who?’ It’s a great branding opportunity.”

The slave—Lapis—had no idea what a ‘great branding opportunity’ was, or why one should be important—his former master, in his brief phone call, had described Erik as ‘some kind of geeky business guy,’ so perhaps he just thought about things differently. But the point was, he _had_ thought about it—he had gone to a lot of trouble to find Lapis a name that was special, that was linked to him in a distinctive way, and reflected something positive about him, as opposed to just whatever Erik thought was cute or cool today. Suddenly, the name seemed perfect.

Impulsively Lapis hugged his new master. “Thank you, Erik,” he said, tears thickening his voice. “Thank you, it’s a beautiful name.”

“Um, you’re welcome,” Erik replied, slightly overwhelmed by the response. He gave Lapis a little pat. “Let go now. Are you getting emotional? I guess that’s understandable, I said this was important. But—don’t get too worked up.”

“Sorry,” Lapis apologized, scrubbing at his damp face. “I just—you put so much thought into it, I’m not used to people thinking about me that much.”

“Oh, I’ve been thinking about you a lot!” Erik promised. He did not say this reassuringly, but rather sort of… plottingly, as though he’d been making long lists of things to do with his new slave that Lapis might or might not appreciate. Except—not in a sinister way, or primarily sexual either. It was hard for Lapis to wrap his mind around—maybe it was similar to how his former master used to talk about a new racehorse he’d bought.

“Name first,” Erik listed. “This, second.” He pulled a new tube of chapstick from his pocket for Lapis to apply. “You need to drink more water, that will help your skin to be less dry,” he assessed. His hand went to Lapis’s hair, pushing the strands around gently but clinically. “I’m not sure about this haircut, I’m going to investigate some others for you. And when we get home I’m going to take you to my doctor, Dr. Wing, for a full checkup. Are you allergic to anything?”

“No, not that I know of,” Lapis replied. He got the feeling that Erik’s attention could be intense, even overwhelming; but he was willing to give that a try, after years of being mostly ignored unless someone felt like meting out a punishment. So far everything Erik had listed seemed positive.

Erik stood abruptly, and the slave followed. “Well, come on then, Lapis,” he said, holding out his hand. The teen took it. “Let’s get out of here. My room is much nicer. Get your suitcase. Can you carry that okay? Does it hurt your ribs to carry it?”

“No, it’s fine, thank you, Erik.”

“Alright. There’s a lot to do, you have to meet Grace…”

~*~*~*~*~*~

Erik stopped at the door to Lapis’s room, and rolled his eyes even as he raised his hand to knock. But he had time for this; he didn’t do things he didn’t have time for, and his meeting was over now. Of course there was no answer, so he pushed the door open.

“Lapis?” The room was neat, impersonal, like a hotel room; anything the boy had bought, that had been bought _for_ him, was discreetly tucked away. Erik rarely came in here. He supposed tidy was good, but it didn’t look like the rooms of other people he knew, people who were comfortable where they lived.

“Lapis?” There was no sign of him in the bedroom or closet, and Erik kept on walking into the bathroom, flipping the light on. Something, he knew, was out of place here, and finally he spotted it—a shoe in the corner by the bathtub. As he watched, the shoe moved, drawing back out of sight.

“Lapis,” Erik repeated more firmly, striding over. “Why are you hiding back there?” Pause. “Have you been there since you ran out?” Pause. “How did you even fit in there?” Pause. The slave did not see fit to answer any of his questions. “Come out now. Are you stuck?”

Carefully, eyes downcast, Lapis scooted himself out of the corner, staying on the floor. Erik presumed it was rather cold down there. “Are you dirty?” he asked with a frown, observing dust on his clothes. “The staff should be cleaning those corners.” Especially now that he knew his slave liked to hide in them. But also just because their job was to clean, and the corners existed.

“I yell a lot,” Erik went on, which was rather obvious, but clearly he was on his own here. “I wasn’t yelling at _you_.” Sometimes people cried when he yelled at them, which was unprofessional, but he’d never had someone race from the room in terror before. Someone he wasn’t even yelling at.

The slave seemed very tense, sitting on the cold floor with his knees drawn up. His skin was unnaturally pale, making the cinnamon freckles stand out more, and he chewed his bottom lip, cherry red and now chapped. G-d, but he was a beautiful thing, Erik thought. Maybe his nose was a little big. But you only noticed that from certain angles.

Erik reached out to touch him. “Just because—“ The slave flinched away from his hand, and bonked his head soundly on the side of the tub.

Erik decided it was time for more aggressive measures and knelt on the floor himself—it _was_ cold—and forced his way into the boy’s space. “No, come on, it’s okay,” he insisted, a hand on the back of Lapis’s head to prevent him from injuring himself further. “It’s okay, come on.” Erik encouraged him to lean forward, resting his head on Erik’s shoulder. “It’s okay.” Erik’s other arm went around his shoulders to keep him in place, especially useful when the slave started to shiver and sniffle.

“Just because I’m yelling, doesn’t mean I’m going to hit someone,” Erik stated. That was what Grace thought Lapis was afraid of, and his shuddering reaction seemed to confirm it. “I don’t hit people, even when they deserve it, which you didn’t anyway, I wasn’t even yelling at you.” Erik paused, not sure what else he was supposed to say. “Do you understand?”

He felt Lapis nod against his shoulder, and the boy’s arms tentatively unclasped from his midsection to brush Erik’s ribs. “Okay? Are you better?” Erik prompted. “Is this the result of user mishandling, or are you inherently defective?” It was important to know which he was dealing with here, before he could effect a solution.

Lapis gave an abrupt laugh against him and sniffled wetly, and Erik let him lean back slightly. Even clouded with tears the boy’s eyes were a vibrant blue, like the bay on a sunny day. “One doesn’t like to think of oneself as defective,” he responded finally, archly as if he was saying just the opposite. Erik liked his accent; he was going to tell HR to find more Scottish people to hire, so he could hear them talk.

“Some of us _are_ defective, though,” Erik replied matter-of-factly. Of course he included himself in that. “We have to understand where our deficiencies are.”

“And correct for them?” Lapis predicted, again with a faint smirk.

Erik stopped him from rubbing the side of his face that was already red from the earlier impact. “I usually don’t bother,” he admitted. He could hire people who were nice, who could explain people to him. Maybe that was a form of correction. “Which is it with you? I’m guessing user mishandling.” To judge from the broken rib he’d gotten shortly before Erik bought him.

Lapis smiled wetly, wiping his eyes with his sleeves. “How do you fix that?” he queried.

“Usually we take everything apart, do a thorough cleaning, and swap out damaged components.” Erik blinked. “The analogy to humans breaks down at that point,” he acknowledged, as Lapis chuckled.

“Although it would be nice if it was that easy,” the slave noted.

“Yes.” Erik had thought that many times. For inherent defects, too, if it was only one bad component, and not a systematic error. “I’m not going to hit you,” he repeated, unsure if this was yet clear to the slave. “Even if I’m yelling at you. I’m not going to throw anything at you, either,” he added for good measure. “Do you understand? Stop that.” He tipped Lapis’s face up to his, tugging on his chin to free his lower lip from where he’d started biting it again. “Do you understand now?”

“I-I understand what you’re saying,” Lapis answered with hesitation. “It might—it might take me a while to really believe it.” Erik narrowed his eyes at him. “I mean, I don’t think you’re _lying_ , sir—Erik,” he corrected hastily. “I just—“

“You’re getting tense again,” Erik noted. He rubbed the back of the slave’s neck in what he’d observed was considered a soothing gesture. “Stop getting tense, it’s bad for you.”

The slave made an effort to relax, closing his eyes and letting out a deep breath. “Change is hard,” he finally said, and Erik rolled his eyes.

“Change is _life_ ,” he corrected. “It’s progress. New, better, different, more!” Not everyone agreed with this philosophy, he’d learned. “People who don’t like change don’t last long in my life,” he stated forthrightly. “But I like you, you’re pretty and you say interesting things.” Lapis began to smile, slow but genuine. “So get over disliking change,” Erik advised, “so I don’t have to get rid of you. Do you feel better now?”

“Yes, I do,” Lapis claimed. “Thank you, Erik.”

Erik was not certain he was entirely sincere. “Do you understand I won’t hit you?” he quizzed.

“I understand intellectually,” Lapis replied, which sounded like a hedge.

“What else is there?” Erik asked with a frown.

“Emotionally. Instinctually.”

Erik scoffed and stood up, offering Lapis a hand. “If you’re going to be emotional, talk to Grace,” he delegated. “Go down to the kitchen and get some ice for your face.” He examined the reddened skin under the light. “You’re going to have a bruise and people will _think_ I hit you.”

“I’ll—I’ll stay in my room until it heals,” Lapis offered.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Erik towed him into the bedroom. “Your room doesn’t look like anyone lives here. Fix that. After you get the ice, come back to my room,” he instructed, glancing at his watch. “I have forty-three minutes to spend exclusively with you. Then I need to exercise.” Couldn’t let one incident of misunderstanding throw off his entire day.

“Okay, I’ll hurry,” Lapis promised, and jogged off. Erik went looking for someone he could tell about cleaning the corners.

**

Grace was not happy. Erik had learned to tell that over the years, but he couldn’t yet reliably figure out what had set her off. Usually it was his fault, but that didn’t really narrow it down.

“I just got here,” he protested immediately. “I’m not even in my office yet.” He was leading Lapis by the hand, and the slave squirmed self-consciously, starting to rub the bruise that bloomed across his cheek. “Don’t,” Erik warned him, and he dropped his hand quickly. “I mean, it’s not even 8am,” Erik went on to Grace, opening the door to his office. “Did I do something last night? You didn’t call.”

“Lapis, could you wait out here, please?” Grace requested of the slave, as he started to follow Erik, and the teen froze uncertainly, still trying to figure out who he should obey.

Erik was about to counter that Grace should feel free to speak in front of Lapis, because Erik wasn’t embarrassed by much, but then he thought of a better use for the boy’s time. “April, get him some water,” he told his receptionist. “Something in a bottle, none of that local c—p. And, some fruit, like a banana. Do you eat bananas?” he checked with Lapis, because he’d heard of someone once who had a banana allergy. Lapis nodded quickly. “Well, eat more of them. You didn’t eat your fruit at breakfast.” With that, he shut his office door.

“Well, what?” he prompted Grace, as he waited for his computer to boot up. It should take less time.

“What happened to Lapis?” she asked him, and Erik blinked at her.

“You just asked him to wait outside.” Grace was smart enough to realize that, so she must’ve meant something else.

“I mean,” she clarified, which she should have just done at the beginning, “he has a giant bruise on his face.”

“Yes, I told him he should’ve put ice on it faster,” Erik agreed. “It’s going to look worse before it gets better.”

“And how did he get that bruise?” Grace persisted.

Now she was just being tiresome, when Erik had a lot of other things to focus on. “You asked him about that yesterday,” he pointed out. “He said you did.”

“And now I’m asking _you_.”

“Grace, why are you wasting my time?” Erik complained. He gestured towards an overstuffed folder on his desk. “We have other things to deal with!” Usually she was more on top of stuff, always trying to reshuffle his priority list.

“I’m giving those interviews today,” Grace went on, “and someone from the press is going to ask me how he got hurt. And I’m going to tell him that it was a household accident, because you would never hit your slave, and it’s insulting to even suggest it.”

This was a long sentence, and Erik had started dumping the items in his folder on his desk while she spoke, organizing them into piles. “That’s a good answer,” he approved when she went silent. “You can say that.”

“I’m asking you if it’s _true_.”

Finally Erik looked up, to see a very sober expression on Grace’s face, and he started to get angry. “Are you serious? Do I go around hitting people?” he demanded. “Or throwing things? No, I don’t. I merely yell. How could you think that?” Did people actually imagine he was violent, or out of control? Erik was _always_ in control.

Grace looked relieved, which meant she believed him at least. “Well, you’ve never had a slave before, I was just checking.”

“J---s C----t, Grace. Do I kick puppies, too?” he asked acidly, straightening the paper piles he’d made. He could see she wanted to rearrange them, so her attention was leaving this unpleasant subject. “No, don’t touch them,” Erik denied her, punitively. “He ran into a bathtub. That happens. When you hide behind bathtubs and expect everyone you meet is going to hit you.”

Now Grace had turned sympathetic. “Poor kid. He seems so sweet! He must have been really scared. I guess his last master was pretty bad.”

“He had a broken rib when I got him,” Erik reminded her matter-of-factly. “I told you that already. User mishandling.” He marched over to the office door and opened it, to see Lapis eating a banana and drinking from a bottle of water, and chatting with April. All activity ceased under Erik’s gaze, however. “Come here,” he commanded. “I want to hire more Scottish people,” he added to Grace as Lapis hurried in. “Don’t lose your accent.”

“Okay,” Lapis agreed. “Thank you for the—“

“He’s so polite,” Erik interrupted, “despite user mishandling. Sit there, and follow me if I leave.” Lapis sat. “Anything you wanted to ask him?” Erik prompted Grace.

“We spoke yesterday,” Grace reminded him. “How’s your face, sweetie?”

“Oh, it’s getting much better, thank you,” Lapis assured her, his eyes pinging between the two of them. “It was just an accident, Erik didn’t—“

“She knows,” Erik dismissed. “This pile first,” he decreed, moving on to _real_ business.

~*~*~*~*~*~

They were dressing up to go out—some kind of party or benefit, Erik was vague on the details and Lapis didn’t know if he was allowed to ask anyone else for more information. He supposed he really didn’t need any. The main thing was that he had a tuxedo to wear—he’d never had a tuxedo to wear, and was equal parts excited and certain he was going to look like a fool.

They were getting dressed in Erik’s room, so Erik could make sure he did it right. It was important to Erik to do things _right_ ; but who defined what right _was_ , was trickier than Lapis would have imagined. So he tried to watch Erik and dress how he did, without being too awkward about it.

“Stop.” Erik was staring at him, or rather _part_ of him, and Lapis froze. “Take your shirt off.”

Lapis did so, carefully. “Have I done it wrong?” he questioned, when Erik just kept staring. His area of interest seemed to be Lapis’s hip or thereabouts, and he twisted a bit to see it for himself.

“Stand still,” Erik ordered, approaching like a panther. His eyes blazed a fanatical blue; that meant a strong emotion, even though Erik claimed to find them pointless. Lapis thought he was actually very passionate. But that was not a helpful thought to have when Erik suddenly knelt on the floor at his feet.

“Erik—“ Lapis stammered, but he didn’t know what to say next. It was not his place to tell his master that they didn’t have time for sex before going to a fancy party.

Erik reached up to unbutton the slave’s trousers. Lapis supposed they _did_ have time for sex, if Erik said they did. He was very punctual, except according to his own schedule, not anyone else’s.

“We’re not having sex,” Erik informed him, even as he opened his trousers up more. He had apparently noticed the need for clarification and Lapis flushed slightly. “ _So_ eighteen,” Erik smirked. “Turn this way.”

Lapis felt his underwear tugged down slightly over his hip and tried to think of boring things. “May I—may I ask what you’re doing?” he inquired. It was really none of his business, was it?

Erik stood swiftly. “Lean forward on the dresser,” he commanded, so Lapis bent over and braced himself against it.

“It _feels_ a lot like sex,” he dared to remark in a light tone, as Erik took up a position behind him, hands on Lapis’s bare hips. In fact it was rather reminiscent of what they’d been doing the last few nights. _Really_ needed to think of something else.

“I’ve left bruises on you,” Erik announced, and Lapis opened his eyes—not realizing he’d closed them—to see Erik behind him in the mirror, staring pensively at Lapis’s hip. There were small, dark bruises on his skin, which lined up perfectly with Erik’s fingers.

Lapis did not know how to respond to that. His instinct, based on Erik’s expression, was to comfort him, which was a very odd sensation indeed. “They’re not bad—“ he began.

Erik crouched down, memorizing the marks, it seemed. “I didn’t realize you were so delicate,” he stated, completely serious. He bounced up, back to getting dressed. “I’ll be more careful with you in the future.”

Lapis twisted to see the bruises himself. “I didn’t even notice them,” he told Erik.

“You’re quite unobservant. Get dressed.”

Lapis attempted to catch up. “I’m not—I’m not _delicate_ ,” he tried to tell Erik, with _delicacy_ of course since he was contradicting his master. “You’re very careful already.” He didn’t want Erik to put him aside—maybe even sell him? “They’re very small,” he continued, a bit desperately. “They’re hardly anything—“

He’d been talking to Erik’s back, and now his master turned around, his eyes raking across Lapis, who was just in his underwear and a puddle of trousers. “I told you to get dressed,” Erik reminded him, and Lapis hurried to obey. “You’re not going to be suitable to go out if you keep thinking about sex.”

“I’m sorry,” Lapis replied soberly. He had to be suitable. Sometimes attention was the last thing he wanted; a good day was when the master, and everyone else in power, didn’t notice him. But with Erik it was different—to be ignored by him was an icy, cold fate. “I’m sorry, I’ll do better—“

Erik suddenly pulled Lapis against him, the slave’s bare back in contact with his chest, and he reached around to fasten Lapis’s trousers for him, which was really not helping with the ‘no sex thoughts’ dictate. “I don’t like seeing bruises on you,” Erik informed him, the purr in Lapis’s ear almost distracting him from the words. “Bruises and other injuries need to be avoided. So I’ll be more careful with you in the future. Without letting you go. Is that sufficiently clear?”

“Suff-sufficiently clear,” Lapis stammered, bolding leaning back against Erik, who took the opportunity to nuzzle the slave’s neck. “Not so clear on the ‘no sex,’” he admitted, a bit cheekily.

Erik snorted and gave him a light push away. “Don’t make me repeat myself,” he warned. “We leave in twenty minutes.” Lapis groaned and went to the bathroom for some cold water.

**

The party was over and they were headed home, sprawled in the back seat of the chauffeured car. Well, Erik never _sprawled_ , he always moved elegantly and deliberately. Lapis felt ungainly and clumsy in comparison, too exhausted to guard himself properly as he stared out the window at the passing city.

“Don’t slump,” Erik ordered him.

“Sorry.” He made an effort to straighten up.

“No, something’s still wrong with you,” Erik assessed critically, and Lapis stifled a sigh. “Look at me.” Lapis did so, trying to project calm.

Erik stared at him for a good minute, which was unnerving. “Well, I’m not a mind reader,” he finally conceded. “Tell me what’s wrong with you.”

“Nothing,” Lapis claimed. “I’m just awfully tired, that’s all.” He yawned. “Champagne makes me sleepy.” He really hoped Erik would buy this, or at least dismiss it and let him be—he didn’t want to have to explain further. But at the same time, he _didn’t_ want Erik to forget about him, and an instant before he would have been brushed off, he sighed and looked away.

“Don’t lie to me, it’s a waste of time,” Erik told him. “What’s wrong with you?”

“You’ll laugh at me,” Lapis predicted.

“Probably not.”

“Well, you’ll roll your eyes and think it’s foolish,” Lapis rephrased.

“That is a risk,” Erik agreed baldly. “Don’t make me ask again,” he prompted. “Asking multiple times is not a sign of my interest. It’s a sign you’ve done something _wrong_ , like not answering.”

Like a computer—if you had to ask a computer the same thing more than once, it meant something was wrong in the system. Lapis tried to frame his response in similar terms, hoping Erik might better understand. “I think it’s a case of… user mishandling,” he began.

“Okay,” Erik nodded readily.

“Someone said something to me tonight, that hurt my feelings,” Lapis blurted out, staring at his hands in his lap and feeling extremely stupid. He was a slave; he was not entitled to intact feelings.

After a long moment of silence, Lapis chanced a glimpse at Erik. “Don’t bite your lip,” Erik commanded. “Where’s that stuff to put on them?”

“Chapstick?” Lapis checked, trying to go with the sudden change in topic. “I left it at the house—“ His tux did not have a compartment for lip balm.

“Always bring it with you,” Erik instructed. “I don’t want your lips to be chapped. I’m not rolling my eyes, by the way,” he pointed out. “I just think you better get used to me saying things that hurt your feelings, because I do that all the time. According to Grace, anyway—“

“It wasn’t _you_ ,” Lapis dared to interrupt, surprised by Erik’s assumption. Well, not really, he agreed with Grace.

Erik frowned at him. “You said user mishandling,” he noted. “I’m your only user. No one else should be using you.”

Lapis took a breath, summoning patience. “I meant, someone else spoke to me—it wasn’t just an internal defect—“

“Who spoke to you?” Erik demanded. “When was this? People shouldn’t speak to you if I’m not there.”

“I-I didn’t say anything in return,” Lapis assured him. That was all Erik could control, though Lapis knew better than to point this out. “It was when I went to the bathroom—“ Here, Erik rolled his eyes; apparently Lapis should sync all his biological functions to match Erik’s.

“Still waiting for the identity,” Erik reminded him impatiently.

“I’m not sure of his name, but I’ve seen him around the office,” Lapis tried to describe. “Fortyish, balding, always wears obscure _Dr. Who_ t-shirts—“

“Oh, Dan,” Erik recognized. “He said something that hurt your feelings? Grace does think he’s sleazy, but he’s got a way with circuits.” Pause. “Tell me what he said.”

“He said—“ Lapis squirmed uncomfortably, which was ridiculous. “He made a comment on my physical attributes that led you to buy me,” he finally explained.

“Exact quote.”

“I don’t care to repeat it,” Lapis dared.

Erik gazed at him for a long moment. “Come here,” he said, and Lapis scooted over to his side, Erik’s arm going around his shoulders. “A comment on your physical attributes, that led me to buy you,” he repeated thoughtfully. “That sounds like a compliment. It wasn’t a compliment?”

“No,” Lapis assured him. “It was said in a sleazy way.” Since Erik was familiar with that term.

“Hmm.” Erik was looking the slave over carefully, in that way that made him feel not like a slave, but rather someone treasured. Maybe _something_ treasured, but that was better than Lapis had experienced before. Certainly better than Dan’s remark made him feel. “Did he mention your eyes?” Erik asked. “I think your eyes are very attractive. They definitely contributed to my decision to bring you home.”

Lapis smiled slightly. “No, he didn’t mention my eyes,” he informed Erik. It was nice to get a _real_ compliment, though.

Erik’s fingers caressed his jaw idly. “How about your freckles?” he checked. “Those are cute.”

Lapis’s smile grew, a warm feeling blossoming inside him. Erik was not the most personable human being—plenty of people could attest to that—but there was something in him that led to kindness and concern, however it started. “No, he didn’t mention my freckles,” he replied.

Erik’s gaze swept over him. “Your lips? I like those, too, if they aren’t chapped—“

Here Lapis grimaced. “Yeah, my lips figured prominently in his remark,” he admitted. As well as what they could do in conjunction with other body parts.

Erik smirked. “Jealousy,” he dismissed, and leaned down to kiss Lapis, gentle and persuasive rather than demanding. They readjusted as the kiss escalated, so Erik could slide his lips along Lapis’s jaw. “How about your accent?” he persisted, still wanting to have a conversation apparently.

“Is that a physical attribute?” Lapis questioned, slightly breathless. Erik’s hand was snaking under his shirt, fingers hot.

“He probably didn’t realize you say interesting things,” Erik continued, somehow coherent, “since you didn’t say anything to him. Which is fine, you don’t have to talk to people who are sleazy.”

Lapis tried to remember that, as it was actually a rather important rule of behavior. “I’m never sure what you mean… about interesting things,” he admitted, distracted. He clung to Erik’s jacket, wondering if he should be removing his clothes in turn.

“You’ll figure it out,” Erik claimed. “Stop. We’re home.” He broke off abruptly, running a hand through his hair. “Do you want to have sex?” he asked, which Lapis thought was slightly ridiculous. Except wonderful that he _asked_. “Or are you tired—from the champagne? Who gave you champagne?”

“I’m not tired,” Lapis assured him, skipping the non-essentials.

“Well, let’s go upstairs, then,” Erik decided, as Steve opened the car door for them. Somehow Erik seemed perfectly at ease as he got out, while Lapis tumbled from the vehicle disheveled and uncoordinated. Erik took his arm with a frown. “How much champagne did you have?” he asked as he led Lapis inside. “I didn’t even see you drinking it. You’re not secretly an alcoholic, are you?”

Lapis understood that Erik was teasing him, despite his tone being completely unchanged, and he chuckled—because he had a master who cared about him, and teased him in a friendly way. “No, I didn’t really drink much,” he promised.

“Good. Now, about those thoughts you weren’t supposed to have earlier…”

**

“…and I don’t like the latest sales projections, I want them to be bigger,” Erik said, while Grace followed him and scribbled notes.

“Everyone wants them to be bigger, that’s the point of sales,” she commented off-hand.

“No, I want them to actually _be_ bigger,” Erik clarified. “Think bigger! Find new markets to tap into. I want to sell at least ten thousand units third-quarter.”

Grace looked up from her notes, hoping that for once Erik was joking. But, no such luck. He seemed to think this was a doable goal, and that people merely needed to try harder.

Erik remained blissfully oblivious to her alarm. “And, find a way to get rid of Dan,” he added casually.

“Dan?” Grace repeated, still stuck on the ten thousand.

“Sleazy Dan,” Erik specified, because there was probably more than one Dan who worked for him. “Something clever, so he doesn’t sue and doesn’t go to work for a competitor.”

“Why do you want to get rid of Dan?” Grace asked, not that she was objecting. “You said he was good with circuits.”

“Just make sure it’s quiet,” Erik non-answered. “When’s my next design meeting? I have some new ideas.”

Grace sighed, added ‘fire Dan’ to her list, and resisted telling Erik that the designers were still chewing over his _last_ three dozen ideas.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lapis exercised in the home gym for a while, then went to take a shower in his room. When he emerged, he realized he wasn’t exactly sure where Erik had gone, and decided he had better find him and check in, to learn what he was supposed to be doing next. Erik had very specific ideas about what Lapis was supposed to be doing most of the time, but the slave greatly preferred that to _not_ knowing, and then doing something wrong.

Finally he located Erik sitting out on the back patio, under the shade of the umbrella, with sunglasses and a drink—and he wasn’t alone. A woman sat in a chair near him, and balanced awkwardly on his lap was, of all things, a small baby.

Erik seized upon the slave’s appearance. “Lapis! Come here.”

“Is that a baby?” Lapis asked eagerly, already making a silly face at it.

“Yes, it is,” Erik confirmed. “Do you like kids?”

“Yes, I love kids,” Lapis assured him. “May I hold the baby?” he asked the woman, who was presumably the mother.

“Yes,” Erik answered instead. “Sit. See, I told you he would be good with kids,” he said to the woman. “He used to be one, not very long ago.”

“So I see,” she replied dryly.

Lapis sat down next to Erik and took charge of the infant, stroking the fine wisps of its hair and playing with its tiny fingers. “Hi, buddy! Hi!” he cooed, and the baby blinked at him, drooling slightly. “You’re just a little thing, aren’t you? You’re just brand new!”

“He’s not brand new,” Erik countered. “He’s three months old already.”

“Two and a half,” corrected the woman.

“This is Alana,” Erik introduced belatedly. “This is Lapis, I told you about him.”

“Yes,” Alana agreed. “Nice to meet you, Lapis.”

“You, too,” Lapis responded politely. “What’s this little one’s name?”

“Edward,” Erik answered.

“Eddie,” corrected Alana, and Erik made a disapproving noise.

“I hate that nickname,” he complained.

Alana was unmoved. “It’s a pretty obvious one, when you start with Edward,” she noted.

“But what’s wrong with just calling him Edward?” Erik pressed. “It’s a great name. It’s kingly and dignified.” Baby Eddie sputtered up some more drool, which Lapis discreetly wiped away.

“We had an agreement,” Alana reminded him, and Erik huffed. “You pick the name, _I_ pick the nickname.”

“I know, I know,” Erik conceded, but he obviously didn’t have to like it.

Lapis’s gaze flickered between the two of them, a confusing idea forming in his brain. But who else would get naming rights over a child? “Is this your son?” he asked Erik.

“Yes,” Erik confirmed.

“You don’t tell him anything, do you?” Alana observed dryly.

“Well, there’s a lot to tell,” Erik claimed defensively. He was more interested in brushing back some of Lapis’s hair that was not in whatever position he preferred. “I’m never sure what’s relevant. Drink some water,” he added to Lapis, handing him his glass. “You should drink some too,” he advised Alana. “You have to stay hydrated to produce enough milk.” She gave him a look and did not pick up her glass until after he’d rolled his eyes and turned away.

Lapis dutifully drank his water, being careful not to drip any on baby Eddie. “Do you live here?” he asked Alana. There was no way that wouldn’t sound dumb, but he hadn’t quite figured out what was going on here.

“No,” Erik replied, as if that should be obvious.

“No,” Alana agreed, as if she wouldn’t _want_ to.

“Okay,” Lapis responded helplessly.

“Why are you good with kids?” Erik quizzed. “What kind of experience do you have in this area?”

“My former master had a lot of children on his property,” Lapis explained, trying to be concise as Erik preferred. “I’ve helped to take care of them for years. Kids are so great,” he added, going back to baby Eddie. “They see everything as new and amazing and wonderful.” Until life taught them otherwise, but he didn’t add that part, because he didn’t like thinking about it.

Erik was quiet for a moment, then he turned to Alana. “I told you he said interesting things,” he bragged. “And isn’t his accent great? He’s _Scottish_. Actually I have _four_ children,” he mentioned to Lapis, which boggled his mind further. Erik’s nice house had no evidence whatsoever of children, from toys to photographs.

“I heard it was five,” Alana noted cattily.

“Don’t go there,” Erik warned her.

“Where are they?” Lapis asked in confusion.

“Around. Around town,” Erik replied, gesturing vaguely. “They live with their mothers. This wasn’t accidental,” he assured Lapis. “It was all planned very carefully. There are contracts. My mother likes having grandchildren,” he admitted.

The arrangement seemed strange and even a little scandalous to Lapis; but at the same time, he could see how it fit perfectly with Erik’s personality—him in control, disregarding social convention to get what he wanted in an efficient manner. The slave suspected there was little room for romance or sentiment in such a setup, which probably also suited Erik just fine.

“Maybe they can come over more often, if you’re good with them,” Erik went on, and Lapis’s eyes lit up.

“That would be wonderful!” he replied with enthusiasm. Lapis did miss having children around—he hadn’t gotten to say good-bye to the ones on his former master’s estate, being sold while so far from home.

“So glad you got him, so you can see your children more,” Alana commented, though not in a mean way.

“They’re not very interesting right now,” Erik stated baldly. “I mean, this guy—he just sleeps and eats and poops and drools. Normal development process, but very much in the prototype stage.”

“A proto-human?” Alana suggested. She seemed to take Erik’s comments well—perhaps that was why he chose to have a child with her.

Eddie began to fuss. “I think he needs his diaper changed,” Lapis assessed. “Shall I do it?”

“Yes, demonstrate your skill to me,” Erik instructed. “Where’s the tool kit?”

“Diaper bag,” Alana corrected, pulling it out. “You want me to do it, Lapis?” she offered. “I didn’t mean to stick you with it.”

“I did,” Erik insisted.

“No, it’s alright,” Lapis assured her. “I don’t mind.” He put baby Eddie down on a blanket on the ground and went to work.

“So when are you coming back to work?” Erik asked Alana. “I need you to kick some a-s on the coding team.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Alana replied ambivalently. “I kind of like being home with Eddie while he’s little.”

This did not compute for Erik. “He’s old enough for daycare now,” he pointed out. “I’m not holding your job open forever. I’m going to make Kevin the lead programmer.”

“Kevin is an idiot,” Alana assessed bluntly.

“He is, isn’t he?” Erik agreed. “If you come back soon, I’ll fire Kevin and let you hire someone new.”

“Tempting.”

“Do you work at Erik’s company?” Lapis was forced to ask.

“That remains to be seen,” Erik shot back.

“Yes,” Alana countered. “If he fired me he’d just have to pay me a living wage from his own pocket, instead of the company’s.”

“That’d be cheaper, though,” Erik noted.

“Anyway, how else do you think he meets girls with half a brain, who are worthy of bearing his children?” she continued tartly. “He can’t put an ad in the paper.”

Erik laughed. “Actually I tried that first, but only weirdos responded.”

Erik did not seem to have a regular significant other, or even an _irregular_ one, though Lapis hadn’t been around that long. Perhaps he preferred this more businesslike arrangement, to actually sharing a life with someone.

With someone free, anyway.

Lapis snapped Eddie back into his bunny suit and picked him up. “What should I do with the diaper?” he asked.

“Take it to Dolores,” Erik directed. “And wash your hands. You knew that, though, right? You seem pretty adept with the little guy.”

“Thank you.” Erik made no attempt to take the baby from him, so Lapis handed him back to Alana and gathered up the items to present to Dolores, who would no doubt be thrilled.

“You want to stay for dinner?” Erik offered Alana. “Lapis can babysit and we could look at some code Kevin’s been stuck on.”

“That should take about five minutes to solve,” she predicted. “But okay. Thanks, Lapis!” she added as he headed inside.

“No problem,” he assured her. He was quite looking forward to babysitting.

~*~*~*~*~*~

 “There you are,” Erik announced, spotting Lapis from the living room. “Come here.”

Lapis dutifully went. He liked that Erik tried to be clear in his directions—when you were used to someone who was just looking for an excuse to punish you, and not being a mind-reader was a good enough excuse, clarity was important.

“Sit down,” Erik instructed, indicating the coffee table, so Lapis pushed aside a large book about modern art and sat, his knees brushing Erik’s on the couch. Erik held both his hands firmly and looked him in the eye, and Lapis prepared himself for an interesting comment or question.

“Have you been hiding food in your room?” Erik asked, and Lapis’s relaxed humor vaporized instantly. Erik did not let go of his hands, however. “The maid found granola bars under your mattress,” he went on, his tone calm. “Still wrapped, fortunately. Otherwise they might have attracted bugs, and we don’t want bugs.”

Lapis hardly dared breathe, his mind a white static of panic. Erik shook his hands a little. “Hey. Are you listening to me?” he prompted. “It’s okay, you’re not in trouble. But I want you to stop doing that.”

Blindly, Lapis nodded, hoping he could leave now, but Erik kept him fixed in place. “Grace says you’re doing it because you’re afraid I won’t feed you,” he continued conversationally. “I’m always going to feed you. Stop biting your lip, that contributes to them being chapped.” Lapis tried to obey.

“You can eat whenever you want,” Erik assured him. “Well, don’t eat a bunch of junk and get fat,” he amended. “But you can always have fruit and cereal and peanut butter and whatever.”

His expression pushed for a response. “Okay,” Lapis agreed, his voice barely audible.

“Dolores is going to make a shelf for you in the kitchen,” Erik continued. “You can eat whatever you want from that. Are you okay?” He squeezed Lapis’s hands a little; they had gone completely limp. “You’re not in trouble. I just want you to stop hiding food. Lapis?”

“Okay,” the slave repeated. Erik seemed to want more. “Thank you,” he added.

Erik nodded. “Do you want to talk about _why_ you felt the need the hide food?”

“No,” Lapis dared, and Erik seemed relieved to avoid that conversation.

“Okay,” he acknowledged, and released Lapis’s hands. “You can go now. Go do some exercising, you’re very tense.”

“Yes, s—Erik,” Lapis corrected at the last moment, and made a swift escape from the room. He was still too frazzled to think clearly, but—Erik hadn’t hit him, he hadn’t even yelled. Was that good sign? Or did it merely mean he hadn’t reached his limit yet? Lapis did not want to find out right now, and dutifully went to the gym.

~*~*~*~*~*~

_~*~*~ Lapis@19 ~*~*~_

Lapis heard yelling from the living room. The sound still made his heart pound, his instincts saying to get far away, to not be noticed by those who were angry. But Erik had demonstrated, time and again, that yelling didn’t mean something worse was going to follow, so he took a few deep breaths and approached the closed doors.

It was Mr. Nash and Mr. Baines, and Grace of course; and the yelling seemed to involve finances, which Erik found interesting only when they were flowing towards projects that he liked. He didn’t pay attention to them the rest of the time and consequently tended to blow through budgets set by others. Lapis didn’t know why they didn’t just let Erik do whatever he wanted—he was brilliant, and he so hated to be constrained. Of course, Lapis would readily admit he knew nothing about running a company.

He opened the door, not enough to be intrusive but enough so he wasn’t being sneaky, and Erik saw him right away. “What?” he snapped, sighing and turning away from the unproductive discussion.

Lapis opened the door more. “May I interrupt?” he asked politely.

“Please do,” Erik allowed. “I would rather hear about, literally, _anything_ else right now.”

“Erik, the Board just feels—“ began Mr. Baines.

“Can it,” Erik ordered. “We’re being interrupted.” He signaled for Lapis to enter, and the slave ducked back to pick up the large gift basket which had prompted his question.

“This was just delivered,” he announced, bringing it to Erik.

“What is it?” Erik asked, not taking it.

“It’s filled with all different kinds of lip balm,” Lapis described, the cellophane around the basket crinkling loudly as he turned it to reach the card, “and it reads, ‘Glad to have you with us. Signed, Martin Jarvis.’”

“Martin Jarvis?” Mr. Nash echoed. “The CEO of Jarvis and James?”

“Why is he sending you—what was it?” Mr. Baines asked.

“Lip balm,” Lapis repeated helpfully. “You know, like chapstick. For when your lips are chapped.”

“There must be two dozen kinds here,” Grace noted, poking at the plastic with bewilderment. “One of everything they make?”

“Oh right,” Erik finally remembered. “That’s for you.” He indicated Lapis, whose eyes widened.

“Me?”

“Yeah, I told Martin Jarvis to send me chapstick every month, for you,” Erik explained. “You’d better use it.”

“I will!”

“You called up the CEO of Jarvis and James, and told him to send you a basket of chapstick every month?” Mr. Nash surmised, with some amusement at Erik’s moxie.

“No, I called up the CEO of Jarvis and James and said I would invest in his company,” Erik corrected, voice rising over the squeaking of the plastic wrap, “which badly needed an infusion of cash after overextending themselves while increasing their manufacturing capacity.” Pause. “And to send me a basket of chapstick every month,” he admitted.

“How much did you invest?” Mr. Baines wanted to know, while Mr. Nash chuckled.

Erik waved this off. “I only own five percent of the company now,” he dismissed. “I don’t even get a seat on the board. Which is good, because I wouldn’t want to be forced to sit through _twice_ as many boring meetings—“

Lapis hugged Erik suddenly, the cellophane shrieking as it crumpled between them. “Thank you,” he said, fearing he might get emotional, but he couldn’t contain himself any longer. “Nobody ever bought me a present before.” Erik’s arms draped loosely around him in response.

“Five percent is a lot,” Mr. Nash pointed out. He seemed pleased, though—whether at Erik’s financial sense or his kindness was hard to tell.

“Well, you don’t know how much lip balm this kid goes through,” Erik responded. He gave Lapis a pat which meant it was time for him to let go now, so he did, reluctantly. “Go play with that,” Erik told him, indicating the basket. “Are you staying for supper?” he asked the others, his tone more mellow now. “Go tell Dolores,” he added to Lapis. The slave nodded and hurried off with his gift, wondering thrillingly if he could possibly have gotten the best master ever.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Erik stomped into his office, Lapis and Grace in tow, rattling off ideas and complaints with his usual morning zeal. He stopped short at the reception desk. “Who are you?”

The young woman quickly stood up. “I’m your new secretary, Alexandra,” she reminded him. They _had_ met before.

“Wore out another one, huh,” Erik cracked, heading on to his inner office, and Grace rolled her eyes behind his back.

Lapis stopped at the desk to introduce himself. “Hello, I don’t know if you remember me…”

Erik sailed back out of his office, now with a folder in hand. “Alexandra,” he repeated.

“Yes, sir?”

“Too long,” Erik judged. “Make it shorter. One or two syllables. Get him a sandwich, make sure it’s vegan,” he added, as the secretary scribbled notes. “I’ll be in Marketing, you—“

“I’ll be at the gym,” Lapis agreed. “I’ll find you when I’m done.” They had a good routine going right now, though Erik always liked to mix things up.

Out in the hall Grace took quick steps to keep up with Erik’s long strides. “Is Lapis vegan now?” she checked. She’d fed him beef stroganoff last time they were over for dinner.

“It’s an experiment I’m doing,” Erik informed her as they waited for the elevator.

“An experiment.” Her flat tone might, to someone else, have suggested disapproval.

“Yeah, for a month, or until I get bored,” he confirmed. “I’m only letting him eat vegan. You know, that’s no animal products at all, like dairy and eggs. And honey! We can’t exploit the bees.”

They got on the elevator, and Grace could see Erik was pretty pleased with himself. “You can’t experiment with his food!” she was forced to chide.

“Yes, I can,” Erik responded immediately. “Why not?”

“The poor kid was half-starved when you got him!” she reminded him. “It took him weeks to even eat normally, and stop hiding food in his room.” Erik grimaced at her recollection of this. “You’re going to set him back if you mess with his food.”

They exited the elevator. “I took him to a nutritionist!” Erik protested. “Dr. Wing is monitoring him. And Tarak loaned me a bunch of vegan cookbooks for Dolores. Who incidentally is not very happy with me, either,” he added. “He’s fine! He can have as much as he wants to eat, just no animal products. He completely stuffed himself at Tarak’s the other day.” That was Erik’s favorite Middle Eastern restaurant in the area. “Did you know Tarak actually has a PhD in plant genetics?” he asked Grace. “Only he couldn’t find a stable job in Syria so he came to the US. He lived in Wisconsin for years. That’s so weird, my dad was from Wisconsin, too.”

Per usual Erik had managed to get them completely off track. “Just be careful with him, okay?” Grace warned. “He’s not a toy.”

“He’s exactly a toy,” Erik scoffed, bouncing into the Marketing department. “That’s kind of the point.”

**

Erik bounded back into his office. “Who are you?” he checked again.

This time the young woman was ready. “Your new secretary, Lex.”

“Good name,” he decided, dropping some crumpled notes on her desk. “Type and organize those. Where’s Lapis?”

“In your office,” she responded, starting to smooth out the scraps of paper covered in Erik’s near-illegible scrawl.

“Did you get his sandwich?”

“Yes, sir. Vegan.”

With that Erik opened his office door slightly and made sure Lapis was decent—after working out he liked to shower and change in Erik’s private bathroom—then burst in with Grace at his heels.

Lapis was surprised to see him, and quickly finished pulling on his shoes. “Oh, I thought you’d be gone longer, I was going to come down—“

“Did you eat your sandwich?” Erik checked.

“Yes. It had hummus and bean sprouts and other vegetables,” Lapis reported dutifully.

“See, I give him breakfast, and then a sandwich mid-morning,” Erik pointed out to Grace. “Grace thinks I’m starving you.”

“I didn’t say—“

“Erik wouldn’t—“

Erik did not care about their reactions to this statement. “Did you write it down?” he quizzed Lapis. “Let me see.”

Obediently Lapis produced a small notebook for Erik’s perusal, which he insisted Grace look at as well. “He has to write down all his vegan food, so he can show it to Dr. Wing,” Erik explained. He was going to harp on this until Grace was forced to admit he was being responsible. “Look at his beautiful handwriting.”

“You do have really nice handwriting, sweetie,” Grace complimented, and Lapis beamed.

“Thank you, Grace!”

“You spelling, however, is atrocious,” Erik added.

Lapis’s face fell and he came around to Erik’s side to peer at the small pages. “Oh. Can you tell me which words are wrong?”

“You won’t be able to read my corrections,” Erik warned, so he merely circled the ones that were incorrect. “Look those up in the dictionary and write them out.”

“Okay,” Lapis agreed readily. He caught Grace’s skeptical look. “I didn’t go to school for very long, so Erik is helping me to learn things,” he explained to her earnestly.

“I’m sure he’s a wonderful teacher,” she replied flatly, and Erik laughed.

He handed Lapis back his notebook. “Where to next?” he prompted Grace.

“Design,” she told him, with some trepidation, and indeed Erik’s eyes lit up.

“Good! I have some new ideas for them,” he announced, heedless of the chaos this usually caused. “Don’t you think we need more people in Design? They seem pretty slow about getting things done.”

“What we need is to design something that turns a profit,” Grace answered tartly, and Erik rolled his eyes at her petty, pedestrian concerns. “Then the Board might give you more money to hire more people.”

“I’ll go inspire them,” Erik promised, which was even more frightening to Grace than his ‘new ideas.’ “Come on, grab your stuff,” he commanded Lapis. “This could take a while.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

 “Are we all set for Paris?” Erik wanted to know, zipping along on his stationary bicycle (Grace objected to having meetings on real bicycles, for some reason). “There should be a TV screen right here, playing video so it looks like I’m racing down a road,” he added, indicating the space between the handlebars. “Are you writing that down?” he demanded of Grace. “That’s a great idea! Write it down!”

“D’you want _me_ to write it down?” Lapis offered, seeing that Grace had enough lists and notes to keep track of.

“No, keep bouncing,” Erik ordered, so Lapis continued jumping on the trampoline. Erik liked him to be fit.

“Yes, everything is set for Paris,” Grace finally assured him. “We have the booth at the tech convention, hotel rooms, a few dinner reservations—“

“Who’s going?” Erik interrupted. “Shari needs to go, and Bob and Joe, right? I mean, Joe Wright, not Jo White. Why the h—l are their names so similar? Make one of them change their name.”

Grace did not write _that_ brilliant idea down either. “You, Shari, Bob, Joe Wright, me, and Bill the intern,” she rattled off, consulting her list.

“Bill the intern?” Erik repeated dubiously.

“He’s an intern,” Grace informed him. “He can run errands, do odd jobs. He speaks French.”

“Do _you_ speak French?” Erik asked Lapis.

“Not very much,” the slave replied. “Mostly curses.” He’d had little formal schooling.

“That’s all you need,” Erik claimed. “Lapis wasn’t on your list,” he added to Grace. “Was he just assumed? _I_ should be assumed—“

Grace was giving him a look though, like he’d forgotten something they’d talked about earlier. “Lapis isn’t going to France,” she finally stated.

This did not ring a bell with Erik. “What? Put him on the list. You want to go to Paris, don’t you?” he checked with the teen.

“Oh yeah!” Lapis confirmed excitedly.

“Well, put him on the list,” Erik repeated to Grace. “What? Okay, it’s another plane ticket, but he’ll stay in my hotel room—“

“Lapis _can’t_ go to France,” Grace rephrased, seeing she was going to have to spell this out.

Lapis stopped jumping on the trampoline. “Oh? Why not?” he asked with some disappointment. He liked traveling with Erik.

“They don’t have slaves in France, sweetie,” Grace told him, sympathetic but also rather conflicted about this.

“Oh.” Lapis clearly had not thought of this, and he sat down quietly on the edge of the trampoline.

Erik stopped pedaling, the better to fix Grace with his intense and disapproving gaze, but she couldn’t change international laws. “What do you mean?”

“Slavery is illegal in France,” Grace reiterated. “Any slaves entering the country can be detained and set to rehabilitation centers, and you could be deported—“

“I-I don’t want to be _detained_ —“ Lapis protested faintly, and Erik saw that he’d gone pale and jumped off the bike to crouch down by him.

“Good G-d, Grace, what’s wrong with you?” Erik snapped at her, rubbing the back of Lapis’s neck. “You’re scaring him! You’re supposed to have more sensitivity than that.” That was why Erik kept her around, to correct his own deficiencies in that area.

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Grace responded, sitting down on the edge of the trampoline next to him. “Just don’t worry about it, you aren’t going there.”

“But what if—Why would—“

“Stop,” Erik told him, forcibly unwrapping the slave’s arms from his midsection, so Erik could rub his hands. “Nothing’s going to happen. You just get to have a vacation while I’m gone. You want to go somewhere? Like Hawaii?” Grace tried not to look surprised. It was a _good_ thing if Erik cared for someone else, right?

Lapis shook his head, unswayed by the offer. “No, I’ll-I’ll stay here,” he decided. Where things were safe and familiar, even if Erik wasn’t there.

“Okay,” Erik agreed. “I’ll bring you back some cheese. Go do some stretches.” He watched, hawk-like, until Lapis had situated himself safely on a floor mat, then turned back to Grace. “We went to Japan,” he reminded her peevishly. “And England and the Philippines.”

“Those places are all okay with slavery,” she pointed out, trying to get back into business mode.

“You always check on that?”

“Yes.” Now, anyway.

“Well, good.” Erik went to his rowing machine next, that matter resolved in his mind. “Tell me about the agenda. And, there should be something that automatically counts all my exercises on different machines, and puts that information together for me…”

~*~*~*~*~*~

_~*~*~ Lapis@20 ~*~*~_

It was Christmastime, and the Bay Area was cold and grey, and Lapis felt awful. He had the flu, Dr. Wing said, and would get better in a few days, during which he was to rest, take medicine, and drink fluids. His fever had already gone down, but he was left with dull aches all over his body and a dullness of the mind that made it hard to concentrate on anything, except cooking shows. He would be a gourmet chef by the time he was well.

The maid who brought him breakfast told him, in a gossipy tone, that Erik had come home rather drunk from the company holiday party last night, and was probably quite hungover this morning. The nurse who attended Lapis also checked on Erik, but being a professional, did not disclose her findings, though apparently there was no cause for alarm.

Lapis was still relieved when there was a knock on his door in the mid-afternoon and Erik staggered in. He was pale and unkempt, and just the walk there from his own room seemed to have tired him out greatly, and he collapsed onto Lapis’s bed.

“Don’t get too close, I’m sick,” the slave reminded him, though most of his symptoms were suppressed by regular doses of Dayquil. Erik merely grunted in response. “Do you want a drink?” Lapis asked, offering him an unopened Gatorade from his stash. After a long moment Erik found the strength to roll over, then sit up, then accept the beverage.

They watched Julia Child silently for a few minutes, Lapis occasionally sneezing and dropping the tissue into a bag on the floor. The nurse would change it when she returned to check on him in the evening.

“What the f—k is this?” Erik asked, staring at the TV screen.

“It’s caramelized sugar,” Lapis explained. Julia was flinging spoonfuls of it at a broom handle dangling off her counter, to make delicate strands like Spanish moss. “It’s a decoration for her cake.”

“G-d.” Erik seemed equal parts intrigued and frightened by this. “That’s dedication.”

“Yeah,” Lapis agreed. He let a few more minutes go by. “How are you?” he finally inquired.

“I feel like s—t,” Erik told him flatly. “My schedule has gone to s—t also.” Lapis nodded sympathetically, knowing how much Erik loathed being pushed off his schedule.

“You’re hungover?” Erik indicated yes. “Did you have a good time at the party, at least?” Lapis was sad to have missed it this year.

Erik’s response was noncommittal, however. “It’s difficult to imagine you drunk,” Lapis continued, with some amusement. Considering Erik was perfectly capable of being loud, obnoxious, and uninhibited normally. “Were you dancing?”

“ _Please_ ,” Erik scoffed. “I could never be _that_ drunk.” Erik was not embarrassed to dance, he merely found it a waste of energy unless everyone had been choreographed precisely. “Sometimes when I’m drunk I come up with brilliant ideas,” he claimed. “Once in college Rick and I got really wasted and developed a business plan for training monkeys to do menial tasks for homes and businesses. Like empty the trash and collect the mail.”

Lapis laughed, then started coughing and paused to drink more Gatorade. “Why monkeys?” he wanted to know. “Why not robots?”

“Monkeys were cooler back then,” Erik said. “We were going to call it Private Primates. We had little uniforms designed—“

Lapis was laughing and coughing again; Erik finally cracked a faint smile. “So what brilliant ideas did you come up with last night?” Lapis asked when he could, and Erik shrugged a little.

“Not really a ‘brilliant idea’ kind of evening,” he responded. “More a ‘have sex with a designer in the stairwell’ kind of evening.”

Lapis blinked a few times, then slowly turned his head to stare at Erik. “What?” he asked, hoping something had percolated through his foggy brain wrong.

“The one who’s always going on about rounded corners and ovals,” Erik described vaguely, eyes glued to the television.

“Melissa?” Lapis repeated, in a faint tone. “You-you had sex with Melissa in a stairwell last night?”

“Yeah,” Erik confirmed slowly. His eyes darted briefly to Lapis, betraying a hint of unease.

The slave tried to make his scrambled mind process this. “Okay,” he began. “Was she also drunk?” This was murky territory, legally. Erik would not like to be told he had to explain this to a lawyer, though.

“I assume so,” Erik replied. “I don’t think she normally has sex with people in stairwells. Do you? Maybe the stairwells get a lot more action than I’d imagined.” He was about to get distracted trying to test this.

“Okay,” Lapis refocused. “Did you… talk afterwards, or…?”

“Not really.” Erik turned more to face him. “I should probably talk to her, right?”

“No, no, no,” Lapis insisted immediately, surprising Erik. “I’ll talk to her. You should definitely _not_.”

“I shouldn’t talk to her.”

“No, please don’t,” Lapis reiterated. He tried to give a confident smile, dimmed slightly by his runny nose. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Why shouldn’t I talk to her?” Erik wanted to know, intrigued.

“Sometimes, when you talk to people,” Lapis tried to explain delicately, “things can be a little… abrupt.”

“Abrupt.” This was not a new concept to Erik. “Grace says that sometimes.” Lapis nodded; he and Grace had coordinated their vocabulary for greater clarity. “Well, what would _you_ say to her?”

Lapis obviously needed more time to figure that out—even firing on all cylinders it would be tricky. “Um, what would you _like_ said?” he tried. “What sort of sentiment?” Erik had no idea what he meant. “For example… an apology?”

Erik seemed offended at this idea. “What’s there to apologize for?” he demanded. “I think it went quite well, under the circumstances.”

Lapis decided to move away from that track. “Do you want to see her again? Like on a date, do you want to have a romantic relationship with her?” he clarified at Erik’s confused look.

“No,” Erik replied definitively, and Lapis felt more than a little relief. “Why would you think that?”

“Well you did have sex with her,” Lapis pointed out. “For many people that indicates ongoing interest.”

“No,” Erik assured him. “She just smelled good,” he added thoughtfully. “Like cookies. She doesn’t normally smell like cookies. Can you ask her why she smelled like cookies?”

“I’ll figure it out,” Lapis promised, which was the only answer that was safe.

Erik made himself more comfortable in the bed. “You smell like dessert,” he judged. “Like an apple pie.”

“I’m sure I don’t.”

“Don’t contradict me. Apparently I’m attracted to people who smell like dessert,” Erik concluded, filing this new knowledge away for later use.

Lapis rolled his eyes. “Every coed smells like vanilla right now,” he remarked, of the latest perfume trend. “You’ll be bringing them home in droves, I expect.”

“No,” Erik countered, startling him. He seemed very serious all of a sudden. “Are you upset that I had sex with someone else? Don’t calculate what you think I want to hear,” he insisted, as Lapis began doing exactly that. “Just tell me what you think.”

“I—“ Lapis did not really know _what_ he thought. “Erik, you have a nurse check on me twice a day. I have medicine and rest and a nice room.” Erik blinked as if this was totally normal, which was exactly Lapis’s point. “I’m a _slave_. I’m not used to being treated this well. I’m not going to… dictate who you sleep with.” He had actually been assuming Erik was sleeping with other people this whole time anyway—not often, but maybe every now and then, when he went out of town for a business trip and left Lapis behind. At least, Lapis had been assuming Erik felt free to do so, even if he preferred work to sex much of the time.

“Of course you’re not going to dictate who I sleep with,” Erik agreed matter-of-factly—to think otherwise was nonsensical. “I don’t like being dictated to. I’m asking if you’re upset about it.”

Lapis took a breath to argue a fine point and then sneezed, which delayed him enough to think better of that strategy. “No, I’m not upset,” he finally told Erik. He had no _right_ to be upset, no expectation of exclusivity. “But if I may be honest—“

“Please do.”

“—I’m rather relieved you aren’t going to see her again,” Lapis admitted. “If you had a regular girlfriend—or boyfriend—things would be awkward for me.”

Miraculously Erik seemed to understand _why_ , without Lapis having to explain it. “I didn’t intend to have sex with someone else, it just happened,” he emphasized. “I don’t think I would bother with anyone else regular, it’s too much work.”

Lapis grinned suddenly, having not missed ‘anyone _else_ ,’ and he slipped his (recently sanitized) hand into Erik’s. “Thank you for the nurse, and everything,” he added, even though he’d said it before.

“I like to take care of the things I care about,” Erik shrugged. “People,” he corrected, after a very long pause. “People I care about seems different than things I care about,” he observed.

“More complicated,” Lapis suggested, still thrilling at being cared about by someone, by _Erik_.

“Infinitely,” Erik agreed, in a disgruntled tone. “I’m going to stay in here for a while. Is there more to drink?”

Lapis handed him another Gatorade with a flourish. “Of course. Would you rather watch something else?”

“No,” Erik decided, so Lapis left the TV on cooking, and got more comfortable in the bed next to him.

~*~*~*~*~*~

 “G-d, I hate scheduling!” Erik complained in frustration.

“If you focused on scheduling instead of just complaining about it,” Grace told him tartly, as he rolled his eyes and spun around in his chair, “you would be done already—“

“If I had a dollar for every time you said that, Grace—“

“You would be a billionaire by now,” she shot back. “Can you focus, please?”

“Technically, I’m already a multi-millionaire,” Erik replied, so the answer to Grace’s question was no. “If you consider all my real estate holdings, stock options—“

“Erik.”

He tried another tactic, though he understood he was just delaying the inevitable. “Why do you and I have to schedule things?” he posed, trying to sound reasonable. “This is what I pay a secretary to do. Where’s Anna? She should be doing this.”

“Anna is no longer your secretary, she was given medical leave for mental health issues,” Grace reminded him, in her patiently-impatient sort of way.

This was news to Erik, in that he’d ignored it when he was told earlier. “I had a crazy secretary?” he asked in alarm.

“No, _being_ your secretary made her crazy,” Grace corrected, not mystified at all by this.

Unlike Erik. “Well who’s out there now?” he wanted to know, gesturing vaguely towards his outer office. “I know I saw someone out there.”

“Your current secretary’s name is Tori,” Grace explained, enunciating in that way that said her temper was growing short. “But she cannot schedule this meeting, because it’s very high level. We’re trying to get a dozen CEOs in the same room at the same time for a conference about the future of technology. Do you remember that?”

“You’re getting patronizing now,” Erik noted with interest. “You went from over-enunciating to patronizing without giving me an opportunity to respond. That’s not fair. Maybe I was going to enthusiastically jump into scheduling right then.”

“Were you?” Grace asked skeptically.

“We’ll never know now,” Erik shrugged, maddeningly. Grace moved on to breathing exercises. “Look, you _have_ my schedule,” he pointed out, indicating the sacred notebook she clutched. “Why do I have to be here?”

“Well let’s find out,” Grace suggested, opening the calendar. “How about you move the meeting with Mark Millar off the 24th?”

“No, that’s the only day he’s in town,” Erik countered.

“Okay. Do you have to be at the product show in New York all three days?” she tried.

Erik gave her a look. “Grace, you’re my marketing guru, don’t ask dumb questions.”

She was not offended, having known the answer to that one already. “Okay. Susan Chen on the 27th?”

“No, it took ages to set that up,” Erik recalled. “We have to meet while she’s on the West Coast but before her software debuts on the 30th. If we don’t meet on the 27th I have to chase her to Atlanta, and oh G-d, why do I have so much scheduling c—p in my head?” he bemoaned. “Think of all the brilliant ideas that have been pushed out by this useless garbage!”

“It’s hardly useless,” Grace refuted. “What about Friday the 28th, or Monday the 31st? You’ve got that whole four-day weekend blocked out as ‘personal.’” This was likely code for something.

“Obviously it’s something personal,” Erik repeated, which probably meant he couldn’t remember.

“Is it something personal that could happen at another time?” Grace pressed.

Erik brought up the memory in a flash. “No,” he said firmly. “That’s Lapis’s birthday, we’re taking a long weekend in Hawaii.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Grace enthused. She was always amazed at evidence that Erik cared for other people, unfair as that might be. Except—“That’s not his birthday, is it?” she asked in confusion. “You just took a trip for his birthday in September, and went to Yosemite.”

“Yeah, that was novel,” Erik recalled, completely missing Grace’s point. “If they just had better TV reception out there—“

“It’s March,” she emphasized of the month they were examining. “If his birthday is in September, why are you celebrating in _March_?”

“I don’t know _when_ his birthday is,” Erik attempted to clarify.

“What?”

“I mean, no one does,” he went on. “His birthdate wasn’t recorded, only the year. So we just pick a time that’s open, when it’s nice to go where he wants to go. He really likes Hawaii, and March was open back _then_.” Somehow his calendar’s fullness was Grace’s fault, and not the result of being in a rising industry that had made him a multi-millionaire.

“No one knows when his birthday is?” Grace repeated with dismay.

“Come on, Grace, I just said that,” Erik replied impatiently. “It’s not like I don’t _care_ when it is, it’s simply unknowable.” Erik hated not knowing things. But in this case he had made the best of it. “It’s actually quite convenient, the kids’ birthdays always seem to pop up at the worst times,” he reflected.

“And he doesn’t mind having his birthday celebrated whenever it fits _your_ schedule?” Grace checked, her eyes narrow.

“You know how he is,” Erik dismissed. “He’s thrilled that we’re doing something nice, of his choosing—rather than, I don’t know, me doing something horrible to him.” Erik chose not to extend his imagination far enough to come up with a more specific alternative.

Grace nodded understandingly. “It would be wrong to postpone that trip, then,” she decided, turning the calendar to April.

“Well, we haven’t booked anything yet,” Erik hedged. “I was going to have Anna-Tori-whatever do that soon—“

“No,” Grace told him firmly. “Lapis is looking forward to the trip then. What about April 4th? That’s currently free.” In-house meetings didn’t count and could be easily pushed aside (though obviously the employees didn’t like to hear that).

“I’m going somewhere around then,” Erik countered vaguely, his tone negative. “Aren’t I?”

“On the fifth you fly to Brussels, but—“

“Then I have to spend the fourth preparing for the time zone difference,” Erik insisted. “So I can go straight to work once I touch down, and not look like a lazy American to all the Belgian guys.”

If there was one thing Erik was not, it was lazy, and Grace scribbled a note on the fourth. “Okay, let’s talk about the next week…”

~*~*~*~*~*~

_~*~*~ Lapis@21 ~*~*~_

Lapis was walking down the stairs, barefoot in his pajamas, still a little fuzzy with sleep but taking a selfish delight in moving freely around a nice, well-appointed house, all the things he was going to do today buzzing through his head. Then in an instant, he stepped wrong, his hands swiped at nothing, and he had just enough time to think about how this was really going to hurt, before he tumbled down the stairs.

He lay in a heap at the bottom, trying to breathe, to assess what hurt, to stay calm—he’d been injured before, usually with more deliberateness, and he had ways of coping. But then he heard his name shouted, and other things he didn’t really listen to, and people were stomping around, unsure of what to do, their panic making his pain seem worse—

“Okay, can you sit up?” Erik asked firmly, hands warm on Lapis’s ribs and shoulders. His voice had a comforting sense of command, but the fact that Erik was _here_ , that he’d been disturbed from his morning routine, told Lapis this was serious, and that upset him more. “Come on, sit up.”

With help Lapis sat up, not wincing too much, but Erik wasn’t sure his reactions were trustworthy. “Look at me,” he ordered the slave, who kept his eyes downcast like he’d done something wrong. Erik had no use for that kind of nonsense. “I said, look at me.” He caught Lapis’s face and tipped it up, rubbing his cheek. “Did you hit your head?” Lapis’s blue eyes filled with tears, which Erik also had no use for. “Are you going to make me say everything twice?” Erik accused lightly.

A maid fluttered around pointlessly; Erik knew none of the household staff had medical training, which had not seemed important before. “Go stand over there,” he ordered the maid, sending her out of Lapis’s orbit. Maybe that would help him focus better. “Does your head hurt?” he repeated to the slave.

Miserably Lapis nodded. Erik kept his hands on him, always moving lightly, and pinned the waiting staff with a look. “Dolores, have the car brought around. Gina, call Dr. Wing and tell him to expect us. Gloria, go to his room, get him shoes, socks, and a coat.” It was a little chilly today, and Lapis complained when he got cold.

The servants scattered to do Erik’s bidding, and he refocused on Lapis. “What else hurts?” Perhaps this was too open-ended. “Does your arm hurt?” He gave his right arm a light squeeze. “How about your left arm?” That elicited a wince and a nod. Erik calculated that he’d landed on that side. “Where does it hurt? Does it feel broken?” Lapis had more experience with that sort of thing than Erik did.

“You don’t have to cry,” Erik assured him, as the tears overflowed his eyes finally. “You’re still alive, and I’m going to take you to the doctor. Can you wiggle your toes? There, you’re not paralyzed. Cheer up.” This resulted in a watery, hiccupped chuckle, which seemed like a good sign. “Does this hurt?” Erik rubbed the back of his neck, thumb brushing Lapis’s jaw. “Is that okay?”

Lapis nodded, his eyes darting up to Erik’s finally. Erik didn’t _think_ he would find anything scary in them, but he obviously wasn’t an expert there. With the arm that didn’t hurt, Lapis grasped Erik’s shirt, and Erik scooted closer to him.

Gloria appeared with the clothes. “Put his shoes and socks on him,” Erik directed her. Why was it ‘shoes and socks’? The socks went on first. “Give me the jacket. This arm first—“

Lapis bit his lip as his hand was maneuvered through the sleeve. “My wrist—“ he mumbled. “I think—just my wrist—“

“Head and left wrist,” Erik noted, putting the coat over his other arm. “I think you’re going to have bruises,” he judged. “You know I don’t like that.”

“S-sorry,” Lapis stuttered.

Gloria had affixed his footwear, and the car was waiting outside. “Okay, you’re going to stand up now,” Erik announced, and helped him do so. “Can you walk?”

Lapis took a step and weaved dizzily, and Erik grabbed him again, draping an arm around his shoulders. “Okay, can you walk to the car?” Gloria opened the front door for them. “Should I carry you?”

“You can’t carry me,” Lapis asserted, at last sounding semi-coherent.

“I probably could, you’re not a big guy,” Erik assessed. He was practically carrying him _now_.

“Thanks,” Lapis responded, with some humor, so Erik thought he was probably doing better.

Steve, the driver, had opened the door to the back seat and Erik let Lapis drop in and lie down. “Dr. Wing’s office,” he ordered, and sat down in the back as well.

Lapis laid his head down on Erik’s leg, presumably not the side of his head that hurt, and Erik resumed touching his skin. It seemed to calm him, as Erik traced the muscles and bones with his fingers—humans were strange creatures, anatomically, with knobs and bumps and whorls that no competent designer would deliberately place on their products. Not to mention the _complete_ non-standardization of dimensions, which Erik was unpleasantly reminded of whenever he had to buy clothes.

After a moment Erik remembered he had other things to be doing—Lapis had a curious tendency to make him lose focus—and he picked up the car phone and called Grace. “I won’t be in for a while,” he informed her, upon answer. “Lapis fell down the stairs and I’m taking him to the doctor.”

“ _Oh my G-d!_ ” Grace exclaimed, pointlessly. “ _Is he okay?_ ”

“Obviously not, or I wouldn’t be taking him to the doctor,” Erik stated.

“ _I mean—should you have called an ambulance?_ ” Grace clarified, which was not at all similar to ‘is he okay.’

Erik gave her question some thought anyway. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “No one suggested it. We’re almost at Dr. Wing’s anyway.”

“ _Maybe I should meet you there_ ,” Grace suggested worriedly, and Erik frowned.

“No, you should stay at the office, and keep repeating to people that I won’t be in for a while, and they’ll just have to wait for approval,” Erik corrected. “Well, if it gets to be too long, I’ll call you and see about giving approval remotely.” Lapis started making noise. “Gotta go,” Erik told Grace, and hung up. “Are you going to be sick?” he asked Lapis. “It’s okay, I don’t like this suit.”

Lapis smiled thinly, his head still resting on Erik’s leg. “I said, you don’t have to stay, if you have to go to work.”

Erik’s hand went back to his cheek. “I know,” he agreed. “If I had to go to work I wouldn’t stay. But at the moment, I don’t have to go to work.” Erik was blessed with a clarity of purpose that kept all his priorities in the proper order at all times. On another day, he would’ve gone to work; but today—this morning, anyway—Lapis was his first priority.

The car pulled into the parking lot of Dr. Wing’s private medical practice. What was the point of being rich if you didn’t have medical attention whenever you wanted it? Dr. Wing and a nurse even rushed outside to help them.

“Come on, sit up,” Erik told Lapis.

“I feel better, I’m sorry for the fuss—“ Lapis tried. Also pointless, but at least he had the nice accent.

“He hit his head, and his left wrist is also injured,” Erik informed Dr. Wing as they guided Lapis inside the clinic. The slave still seemed dizzy.

“Right this way, we’ll just take a look,” Dr. Wing instructed, leading the way to his exam room.

Erik had several good ideas as he observed the examination process and waited for the results of the scans the doctor took. Technologically, many of the procedures could be automated and digitized, which would yield faster answers. Also, a communication method where he could send short messages about these ideas to his designers would be useful, in that it would keep Dr. Wing’s receptionist from glaring at Erik whenever he used her phone. He didn’t _care_ about the glare, he just _noticed_ it. He could have used the car phone, of course, but then he wouldn’t have been available when the doctor had something to tell him, or when Lapis needed him nearby.

“Maybe you could just write your ideas down,” the slave suggested dryly. He was reclining on a bed, with ice on his head and wrist.

“I want to write them down, but then send them to the designers,” Erik specified. “Like a telegram. They used to have telegrams. A telegram directly from here to there. A portable telegram machine, that’s what we need.” He started to get up to use the phone.

“Could you—“ Erik sat back down. His priorities were clear, he just didn’t like downtime.

“I’ll write it down,” he conceded, and started scribbling on a nearby piece of scrap paper, which may have actually been a desk calendar.

“I’m sorry to be so much trouble,” Lapis went on, not for the first time.

“Stop saying that,” Erik ordered him. “You’ve been very inspirational today. We should go different places more often, so I can get ideas about inefficiencies in the system.” Erik wrote that idea down as well.

“Well, I’m glad I could help,” Lapis claimed.

“Next time you don’t have to get hurt, though,” Erik pointed out. “I’d prefer you didn’t, in fact.”

“So would I,” Lapis agreed.

Erik was still scribbling. He had bad handwriting, possibly due to poor fine motor control, which really bugged him; that was one reason he preferred typing on a computer. “What I need is a computer small enough to carry around, so I can set it up anywhere and type,” he decided, writing that idea down also. Sometimes, absent a computer, he dictated ideas to Lapis, who had unbelievably nice handwriting; but Erik recognized that was impractical at the moment.

“You are on fire,” Lapis commented, metaphorically. “Could I have a drink, please?”

Erik dropped his pen and reached for the cup of water the nurse had left, bringing the straw to Lapis’s mouth. “Just a little bit,” he reminded him.

“Thank you,” Lapis told him, after he took the drink away. Erik watched the slave closely, waiting for another burst of inspiration to strike. “Could you hold my hand?” Lapis requested, and Erik readily took the uninjured one.

“Does that help somehow?” he assumed. “A robot hand, with automatic pressure-sensing—“

Lapis opened his eyes, which he’d had intermittently closed. “It does help,” he confirmed, “but a robot hand would not be effective. It has to be a human, preferably someone I know.”

“It almost never has to be a human,” Erik countered, and Lapis raised an eyebrow. “But I suppose if computers replaced humans in other jobs, the humans would have more free time to hold hands,” he allowed.

“That’s the spirit.”

“But still, a robot with pressure sensors—“ Erik continued after a moment.

Unfortunately he was interrupted by Dr. Wing. “Good news! The wrist is only sprained, not broken,” he announced. “And, likely no concussion.”

He should have known better than to use that word around Erik. “ _Likely_?” he repeated with disdain. “What percentage are we talking about here? Fifty-five percent unlikely? Ninety-five percent?”

“More like ninety-five,” the doctor clarified. “Do you want to see some X-rays?”

“Yes,” Erik told him eagerly, so they spent a few minutes going over the ghostly images while Lapis laid there quietly.

“So, Tylenol, ice every few hours to keep the swelling down, and let him get some rest,” Dr. Wing summarized. By request, he had printed a sheet for Erik with these instructions. “Someone should keep an eye on him, though, and call me immediately if the pain increases, or he becomes nauseous or disoriented.”

Erik underlined this on the sheet, studying the orders carefully. “This sentence could be streamlined,” he noted, marking it.

“I’ll send you a new draft later today,” the doctor promised. And, he actually would, that was the nice thing.

“Okay, time to go home,” Erik told Lapis, and he was transferred to the car, slowly and carefully, after declining Erik’s initial suggestion of riding home in an ambulance.

He sat up in the car this time, the ice on the seat beside him for a while as he gave his skin time to warm back up. Erik dialed Grace on the car phone again, then resumed holding Lapis’s hand. “We’re on our way home now,” he reported. “I’ll be in once I get him settled. Have you been keeping up with all my messages? I have some more ideas written down.”

“ _Yes, I heard you’ve been very prolific today_ ,” Grace agreed. “ _How’s Lapis?_ ”

“Sprained wrist and no concussion. _Likely_ ,” Erik passed on. “He should be fine in a few days. Take this down: robots with pressure sensors—“

Grace did not see the point of this, but Erik could expand on it later. He had a lot of other ideas to flesh out once he got to the office, also, and he could see his priorities starting to realign. He didn’t like to leave loose ends, though. “Dolores,” he told the housekeeper from the car phone, “make up a bedroom for Lapis on the ground floor. I want his whole bedroom moved down there, so he doesn’t have to use the stairs as much.” He heard the slave protesting but shushed him. “What’s that, Dolores? Oh, I forgot about that. Well, don’t move his room, then. We’re almost home.” He hung up. “Apparently we have an elevator,” he commented to Lapis.

“Oh, yes, that’s right.” So Erik wasn’t the only one who had forgotten.

“You’re going to be using that from now on,” Erik decreed. “Until I decide that your walking ability has improved sufficiently. You are on walking probation.”

Lapis scoffed, but the action had little bite at the moment. “It was just an accident,” he promised Erik.

“A random bug?” Erik translated. “That’s not very reassuring. Are there walking classes you can take? Something needs to be fixed here.”

Lapis smiled faintly. “Some things aren’t fixable,” he claimed, and squeezed Erik’s hand. “But thank you for trying. Thank you for staying with me.”

At first Erik had been annoyed with Lapis’s constant thank-yous. But after a while he learned to see them as indicators of what the slave found important, which were useful for future interactions. “I’m not going to stay with you all day,” he warned. “But I’ll have _someone_ stay, in case anything goes wrong.” He was going to have a copy of the doctor’s instructions distributed to his entire household staff, and Lapis’s medication recorded, and constant monitoring of him for the next forty-eight hours. It would be great if all this could be electronic, and feed into one central databank he could access remotely—

They arrived at home before Erik could finish writing this down, which was irritating. “We can just sit here until you’re done,” Lapis offered, but Erik suspected he was just being facetious, which must mean he was feeling better.

He was less dizzy now, but Erik still kept a firm grip on him as they left the car and went inside, turning towards the mysterious but convenient elevator that Dolores pointed out. Lapis sat gingerly on his bed as Erik removed his coat, then his shoes, and helped him under the blankets, adjusting the pillows so he was reclining, which was better for the ice pack on his head.

“Okay?” Erik checked. “Hey. Open your eyes.” Lapis did so. “If you feel bad, you are to tell someone,” he ordered. “None of this, ‘I don’t want to cause a fuss,’ got it?” He rubbed the slave’s cheek, as this seemed to help cement information. “Don’t keep damaging my property.”

“Okay,” Lapis agreed, with a small smile. He was a little paler than usual, with stress, Erik supposed, his freckles standing out more. Impulsively Erik leaned in to brush Lapis’s lips with his own. “Chapstick,” he reminded him when he pulled back. “I bought stock in that company to make sure you would always have some, you know.”

At this Lapis gave a grin that was almost normal. “I know. There’s some in my nightstand.” Actually there were about half a dozen containers of lip balm in his nightstand drawer, so Erik put two different ones within reach.

“Go to sleep,” he told Lapis, hoping he was making his task for the next few hours extremely clear. Then he summoned Dolores in, to take the first shift watching Lapis, and went off to work buzzing with new ideas. Maybe he should lead the designers on some field trips around the city, looking for inspiration…

~*~*~*~*~*~

“I don’t even understand what I’m being sued for,” Erik complained, not for the first time.

Paul the lawyer glanced at the brief again, willing himself to find yet another way to phrase this, that maybe his client would accept, allowing them to move on. “Miss Rubenstein alleges that you created a hostile work environment, which forced her to quit for her own mental health.”

Erik blinked at him. “We _are_ talking about Valerie here, right? The girl who swears like a sailor? I kind of feel like _she_ made the environment hostile.”

“She did swear a lot,” Lapis agreed supportively.

“If I may be frank,” Grace interjected, “it was probably more the yelling, threatening, and belittling that she found hostile.”

Erik was unmoved. “Well, she shouldn’t have produced s—t prototypes, then.” No one reacted to this in the way he thought they should. “I mean, Valerie wasn’t _that_ bad,” he insisted. “Lots of people who are worse than her are still working here.” He frowned. “Why _is_ that? I’m going to make a list of s—t workers to fire.” He started looking around for a pen.

“She also has a related claim,” Paul went on, trying to keep them on track, “about sexual harassment—“

“Sexual _what_?” Erik interrupted. “I never had sex with Valerie. Someone told me it was a bad idea to have sex with my employees. Was that you?” he accused Lapis.

“It was _me_ ,” Grace responded firmly.

“But I agree,” Lapis added.

“ _You_ have a conflict of interest,” Erik countered, which merely made Lapis thrill with the idea of having a special place in Erik’s life.

“It’s an emerging area of law,” Paul redirected smoothly. “Unwanted sexual overtures, favoring or disfavoring an employee based on sexual attractiveness—“

“You asked her to be the mother of one of your children,” Grace reminded Erik, having read the brief.

“Oh, right.” He had forgotten that. “But that was years ago. When she made better prototypes. After she turned me down I never mentioned it again. Everything went on just like before. Until she got bad, and then she quit. Did you have her desk checked?” he demanded of Grace. “If she worked on anything on _my_ time, that she’s thinking of taking to a competitor, I’m going to sue _her_ a-s.”

Paul was dutifully taking notes, always glad for the notion of attorney-client privilege. “So, you feel you treated her the same as everyone else?” he checked.

“Yes, absolutely,” Erik vowed.

“You yell at, threaten, and belittle everyone equally, whether or not you might have suggested having sex with them at one point in time,” Grace summarized tartly.

“That’s a great defense!” Erik responded brightly. “Let’s go with that.”

“You aren’t hostile to _me_ ,” Lapis defended loyally.

“She meant employees,” Erik clarified. “Obviously. I mean, we’re not talking about my mom, either.”

“I think you’re nicer to Grace,” Lapis insisted.

“Why are you trying to poke holes in my defense?” Erik demanded of him. “I am mean to Grace in my own way, that I feel is most effective with her.” Grace rolled her eyes. “Which has nothing to do with whether or not I want to have sex with her. Which I don’t,” he added. “No offense.”

“Oh, none taken,” Grace assured him dryly.

Erik turned back to his lawyer. “So. Are we done?”

“Not quite,” Paul countered, trying not to sigh.

~*~*~*~*~*~

_~*~*~ Lapis@22 ~*~*~_

It was early afternoon when the driveway bell rang, alerting them to a visitor, and Erik sprang up from the couch to peer out the window while Lapis hurriedly made himself more presentable. “It’s a taxi,” he reported. “Who would come here in a taxi? S—t! It’s Katherine.” With that Erik stomped towards the front door, and Lapis hurried after him, inwardly sighing that their day, not to mention Erik’s good humor, was now probably shot with the arrival of his ex.

“What are you doing here?” Erik snapped at Katherine, his temper instantly flaring.

Climbing out of the back of the taxi with some garbage bags, Katherine tried to face him with dignity; but that never impressed Erik, and she wasn’t that good at it anyway. “We’ve been evicted,” she announced, setting the bags down.

“Don’t leave your s—t in my yard!” Erik ordered. “Why are you here?”

“I just _told you_ ,” Katherine replied, as she helped six-year-old Lisa out of the car. She was trying to stay calm and be the more reasonable person, Lapis could tell, but he knew that wouldn’t last long, and he headed for the little girl. “We’ve been evicted, and we don’t have anywhere to go—“

“That’s not my problem,” Erik informed her coldly. “Do not leave her s—t here!” he commanded the driver, who was unpacking more bags from the trunk.

“Hi, Sunshine!” Lapis told Lisa cheerily, crouching before her. “I’m so glad to see you again!”

She started to smile at him, but was distracted by her mother’s rising voice. “—landlord said we had to leave, and _your daughter_ has nowhere to sleep tonight—“

“She’s not my—“ Erik started to protest, but cut himself off when Lapis gave him a look. He had other things to object to, anyway. “I pay your f-----g rent and utilities, you got kicked out because you’re partying like a f-----g kid—“

“They’re not _parties_ , they’re spiritual retreats—“

“Thank you,” Lapis told the driver politely, paying the bill and adding a large tip. “Yeah, just leave that there. Have a nice day.”

The cab drove off, eager to escape the drama. “No, get back here!” Erik tried to insist. “You’re not staying here, pick up your s—t and start walking—“

“Alright, come with me, Sunshine!” Lapis told the six-year-old girl, scooping her up. “Let’s go play inside, huh?”

“Don’t take her in my house!” Erik told him, but Lapis dared to ignore him, and he was swiftly distracted by Katherine anyway.

“My toys—“ Lisa murmured worriedly, and Lapis snagged a likely-looking bag to bring with them.

“Oh, it will be fine, sweetie,” he promised her, carrying her through the front door. “I don’t think it will rain, do you?”

He shut the door behind them and went to the back of the house to the living room, which also had doors he could shut, since Erik and Katherine’s voices tended to carry. Lisa seemed small and solemn as he sat down on the floor with her, and he could only imagine how confusing and stressful her day had been. She was a very brave girl to not be crying at this point, he thought, though unfortunately this was not the first confusing and stressful day she’d experienced.

“Let’s sing a song, huh?” he suggested. “Do you know, John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt…”

They sang silly songs for a few minutes, until Lisa seemed more relaxed, and he opened the bag to pull out a couple of dolls. “Hello, Jenny,” he greeted one. “Oh, you’re new. Hello there!”

“That’s Kelly,” Lisa introduced. “And that’s not Jenny, her name is Tanya now. Tanya is cooler.”

“Okay. Hello, Tanya,” Lapis corrected. “I’m very pleased to meet you. Are you hungry?” he asked Lisa. “Can you stay right here and play, while I go get us a snack?” She nodded readily and he stood. “Stay right here, I’ll be right back.”

Lapis closed the doors behind him and headed for the kitchen. There was no need to ask if Katherine and Erik were still arguing out front. Erik still refused to _admit_ Lisa was his daughter, despite the 94.1% positive on the court-ordered paternity test—with his other children, the ones who were _planned_ with women he considered suitable for long-term acquaintance, the score had always been at least 98%, and he clung fiercely to this technicality.

Plus he just plain didn’t like Katherine—they grated expertly on each other’s nerves. Obviously at one time they had felt differently about each other, but Lapis gathered their relationship had only been intended as a casual, short-term arrangement. Erik said she was irresponsible with money, and with her life in general; and Lapis had seen that she handled Erik poorly, always pressing when she should back off and waiting until there was a crisis to spring at him, making demands. On the other hand, Erik clearly had zero respect for her and any ideas or goals she might have, and whenever he could rub her mistakes in her face and reassert his control over her, he greatly relished doing so.

So it was really no wonder that every time they met, the hostilities were perpetuated, and little Lisa was trapped in the middle. At least Erik was being more generous with his financial support now, an increase from the paltry sum he’d initially been ordered to pay by the court. Of course, for him more money meant more control, and thus more ways Katherine could screw up according to his rules.

The mothers of Erik’s other children didn’t give him a quarter of the trouble Katherine did, Lapis could easily see that—no one else had shown up at Erik’s office, child in tow, threatening to tell the Board what a lousy father he was, for example. In fact two of the other mothers still worked for Erik, and the other two had also started out as employees. Which seemed questionable to Lapis in itself, but if they weren’t complaining…

“Hi, Dolores,” Lapis greeted as he entered the kitchen.

“What’s going on out there? It’s like World War III,” she commented.

“Katherine showed up with Lisa.” Say no more, said her expression. “Can you make a little snack for me and Lisa? Thank you.”

Then with some hesitation, Lapis picked up the kitchen phone and dialed. Grace answered. “ _Hello?_ ”

“Hi, Grace,” Lapis replied, an apology already in his tone. “I’m so sorry to bother you, but are you busy?”

A consummate professional, Grace did not sigh about this interruption on her day off. “ _What’s wrong?_ ”

“Katherine got evicted, and she brought Lisa and all her stuff here,” Lapis explained. “Erik is taking it as well as you might imagine.” Now Grace _did_ sigh. “I know it’s personal,” Lapis added hastily. Grace tried, usually without success, to avoid Erik’s personal life. “I’m worried the neighbors will call the police again, though. I could call someone else—“ Anyone Erik respected, who could stay calm, would probably induce him to give in to Katherine sooner and with less ugliness; but that was an extremely short list of people. Erik’s mom lived too far away, and Mr. Nash was away on a trip, which just left Grace.

“No, no, it’s okay,” Grace assured him. “You did the right thing. I’ll be right over.”

“Thank you,” Lapis told her, with sincerity, and hung up.

He picked up the plate of cheese, crackers, and apple slices Dolores had put together and carried it back to the living room, putting on a happy face for Lisa as they continued playing. He loved all of Erik’s children, and felt so lucky to have them in his life; but he might have loved Lisa the most, because she seemed to need it more than the others. Lapis thought of himself as a child, and all the things he’d wished he’d had—not money, but stability and kindness—and he tried to give those things to Lisa as much as he could.

To him there could be no doubt that she was Erik’s daughter—the intensity of her gaze, the steel trap of her mind as she dictated elaborate scenarios for her dolls to participate in, even her resiliency in the face of hardship. She got other things from her mother, but not those.

Lapis heard the driveway bell again, and felt a shot of cold anxiety as he imagined it was the police. If the neighbors were bothered by Erik and Katherine’s yelling in _this_ well-insulated neighborhood, it was probably appropriate that they call the authorities; but what if they tried to take Lisa away? That was the sort of thing Erik never thought about when his mind was full of irrational fury at Katherine. The slave pulled Lisa onto his lap, laughing and hugging her, but if some stranger arrived to take her, he honestly thought he would grab her and make a run for it.

Fortunately there was no evidence of police. After a few minutes there seemed to be more activity in the house, and then what could only be Erik stomping around the halls.

“F—K!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.

Lapis’s eyes slid over to Lisa. “My daddy says a lot of bad words,” she observed.

“Yes, he does, doesn’t he?” Lapis agreed. “They’re grown-up words, and we mustn’t use them.” Lisa nodded readily. “Can you wait right here, Sunshine?” he asked her. “I’m going to go check on your daddy. You just stay here and play, okay?”

Lapis slipped out of the living room and easily located Erik. “That g-----n f-----g—“ he started exclaiming in frustration, and Lapis immediately embraced him so he could murmur warningly in his ear, not wanting Lisa to hear more. Erik continued with his obscenities, but at a lower volume this time. “Why did you leave me alone with her?” he demanded of the slave, pulling back to look at him. “You know I don’t like being alone with her.”

“I was looking after Lisa,” Lapis pointed out, in case this had escaped Erik’s notice.

“Well, you _should_ have been looking after _me_ ,” he grumbled.

Lapis chose to take this as a measure of Erik’s comfort with him, since he did not readily admit to _needing_ looking after. “Well, you’re a grown man and Lisa’s just a little girl,” he noted, but warmly. This did not make any difference to Erik. “Are they staying?”

Servants were carrying Katherine’s worldly possessions up the stairs to the second floor. “Yes,” Erik admitted with a grudging sigh. “Grace arrived and said—“ He gave Lapis a narrow look. “I suppose _you_ called her,” he accused.

Lapis was not concerned about this. “You were yelling quite a lot,” he pointed out, “and I was worried about you!”

Erik was mollified by this, but began to tense up again as he kept thinking about the situation. “Just—you know how hard it is to get evicted from that place, when your bills are paid? She had _three_ warning notices, what kind of an idiot doesn’t stop to think—“

He shut up abruptly and turned away, trying to calm down, and Lapis saw Lisa standing in the doorway of the living room, staring at them solemnly. With a big smile he went over to scoop her up. “I have great news, Sunshine!” he told her. “You and your mom are going to spend the night here with us!”

“We are?” she asked, slightly skeptical.

“Of course!” Lapis insisted. “You and I are gonna have so much fun! Let’s go pick out your room.” He carried her up the stairs, Erik moving deftly aside so as not to get snared.

“There’s stuff here!” he complained, indicating Lisa’s toys left on the floor.

“I’ll get them later!” Lapis called back down. When it came to the children’s welfare he was much more daring about defying Erik. “What’s your favorite color?” he asked Lisa.

“Pink!” she decided.

“I don’t think we have a pink bedroom,” he admitted. “Do you like flowers? We have one with pretty blue flowers…”

**

The house was very quiet for a while, as Katherine and Erik managed to avoid each other, even during supper. But Erik would not hide out in his own home forever, and after Lisa had been put to bed he positioned Lapis in the hallway, then sauntered into the room where Katherine was sitting, staring aimlessly off into space. The slave was clearly meant to eavesdrop.

Erik sat down across from her. “Are you calm now?” he asked, as if he hadn’t also been screaming on the lawn.

“Yes. Are you?” Katherine shot back.

Maturely Erik ignored this. “Tomorrow, you will go find another apartment, comparable to the last one,” he directed Katherine, “and I will continue paying for it.”

“Thank you,” she replied tightly, her gratitude tempered by the price he exacted in return.

“If you get kicked out again,” he went on evenly, “then I will take Lisa to live with me, and you will do—I don’t care what, I don’t care where.” But not here, or with his support.

“You would take her away from me,” Katherine restated.

“Yes.”

“The girl you won’t even acknowledge as your daughter.”

“The court says she’s mine, and the court says I have to pay you for her,” Erik replied coolly. “So yes, if you don’t take care of what’s mine, I will take her away from you, and save myself some money.”

Katherine barked out a sharp laugh. “So she’s _yours_ , but she’s not your daughter,” she concluded, clearly finding Erik’s logic ridiculous. “Do you think she’s your slave, like Lapis? Somehow you can _own_ her, without being responsible for her existence?”

“I don’t know why you’re so stuck on this point,” Erik responded, with complete sincerity. “I told you I’m going to give you two what you need. If what _you_ need is to be freed of your childcare responsibilities, I will happily give you that.”

Katherine was quiet for a moment, then stood abruptly, and Lapis ducked back behind the door. “I’m going to call my lawyer,” she announced, heading for the phone.

“Feel free,” Erik said, with exquisite politeness. “Why didn’t you just go to _his_ house? Be sure to tell him I offered to keep paying your rent, and you’re refusing because you can’t guarantee you’ll be a responsible tenant.”

Katherine put the phone down. “They were spiritual retreats,” she stated, obviously making an effort to stay calm.

“You can continue to have them,” Erik suggested in a reasonable tone, turning to face her. “You can do whatever you want. Travel, live on a commune, open an art school.” Somehow he managed to sound both friendly and mocking at the same time—he was very good at that. “But do it on your own, and Lisa stays here. She’ll love it here,” Erik went on cheerfully. “Lapis is great with kids.”

Katherine said nothing, and Lapis peeked around to make sure she wasn’t about to brain Erik with the phone. Slowly she walked back around the couch and sat down in her original seat. “You will continue paying the rent and utilities?” she checked.

“The same amount as before,” Erik promised, confident now in his victory. “And you will straighten the f—k up.”

Lapis knew it was probably best for Lisa to stay with her mother, where things were familiar, as long as Katherine could be a little more stable; but part of him was so excited at the possibility of her coming to live with them. It wouldn’t work out well, surely—Erik would be Erik, and Lapis would be torn on who to attend. But still.

“Fine,” Katherine finally replied. She stood, and Erik stood too, a parody of the perfect gentleman. “I’ll start looking tomorrow.” She started to leave the room and Lapis dashed around the corner.

“You’ll _find_ a place tomorrow,” Erik corrected. “You’re not staying here a second night. It’s not difficult.”

Katherine scoffed. “As if I’d _want_ to stay here longer,” she replied, and left. Lapis fervently hoped Erik would keep his mouth shut and for once let her have the last word; miraculously, he heard Katherine head upstairs in silence. Once she was gone he walked around into the room.

“Well, that went well,” Lapis commented brightly.

“Yes, I thought so,” Erik agreed. “Tomorrow I want you to call Bernie and document that this happened.”

“Maybe _you_ should tell him—“

Erik waved this suggestion off. “He says your statements are more accurate than mine?” Clearly he did not understand why this should be, but if it got him out of something unpleasant he didn’t care much. He took Lapis’s hand to lead him upstairs. “Come on, let’s go do something relaxing.”

This could mean sex, or more like listening to Bob Dylan albums, neither of which Lapis objected to. “Okay, but we have to be quiet,” he warned. “Because there’s other people here.” He knew better than to call them ‘guests.’

Erik rolled his eyes. “See about having the walls soundproofed,” he decreed, and Lapis added that to his list of chores.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lapis woke with a start, and realized Erik’s side of the bed was still empty. It was after three in the morning, and rain pattered at the window, exacerbating the slave’s profound sense of unease. The last few days had been very tense—Erik’s argument with his friend Mr. Nash, after Mr. Nash said Erik’s beloved computer wasn’t selling well and needed to be canceled; Erik’s secretive, angry phone calls; and now, tonight, the phone had rung late and awakened them, and Erik was _summoned_ to a Board meeting, in the middle of the night! Erik did not like being summoned, and even Lapis understood that it was not normal to call a Board meeting after midnight.

Of course, Erik was an extraordinary person, and thus couldn’t be expected to operate in ordinary ways. So perhaps this would all blow over. Erik liked his new computer so much, and the Board had given its stamp of approval to everything he wanted to do back when it was being developed—he might be able to persuade them to stick with it until it found its audience, or failing that, he would start over and come up with something else brilliant. People just didn’t appreciate Erik’s brilliance, Lapis felt. Granted, it came with a rather prickly coating, so it was probably an acquired taste.

But the late-night meeting was alarming—Erik had been very angry about it, and had driven himself instead of waking the chauffeur. That meant he was all alone, out there in the night and the rain, and Lapis had tried to stay awake, determined to greet him properly when he came home. That obviously hadn’t worked, but also apparently hadn’t been necessary.

Something had awakened him now, though, and he turned his hearing to the other sounds in the house. There was a tread on the stairs, not really trying to be quiet, and it paused for a long moment outside the bedroom door. Lapis lay still in bed, barely breathing, as he waited to see what would happen. Finally the bedroom door opened.

“Erik?” Lapis asked before he could stop himself.

“Go back to sleep,” Erik told him, but Lapis dared to disobey, and turned on the lamp at his bedside. Erik rolled his eyes at this, a comforting gesture. “Well, if you’re awake, get me some dry clothes,” he ordered, starting to shuck the ones he was wearing. “I’m soaked.”

This, Lapis hurried to do, and Erik changed into pajamas while the slave spread his wet clothes out in the bathroom to dry. When Lapis returned Erik was reclining against the pillows, seemingly not ready to go to sleep, and his eyes slid sideways to the slave.

“Come here,” he commanded, and Lapis ended up straddling his lap, a familiar position. Erik’s fingers slipped beneath the waistband of his pajamas to massage his hips and Lapis began to wonder what exactly he had in mind—sure he was tired, after being out so late? But Erik had always been unusually energetic.

“Are you—Is everything okay?” Lapis asked him, trying not to get distracted.

“Hmm, complicated question,” Erik revealed, stilling his hands. “Would you rather talk, or have sex? We can’t do both tonight. Take your pick. Personally I’m leaning towards sex, but don’t let that influence you,” he added sharply.

For Lapis this was not a difficult decision, attractive as Erik was. “Talk.” Erik raised an eyebrow in surprise. “I was worried about you, when you went out,” Lapis confessed. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Erik sat up more, but did not dislodge Lapis. “I went to the office,” he replied, which was not news. “For a Board meeting. Turns out holding them in the middle of the night is actually a lot more exciting, not to mention shorter,” he claimed. “I’ll have to remember that.” His fingers twined idly with the slave’s.

Lapis knew avoidance when he saw it. “What was wrong?” he persisted. “Why did they call a meeting this late?”

“The important thing to remember is that we’re going to be okay,” Erik said instead, looking Lapis in the eye. “I know you worry, but you don’t need to worry about this. I still have money, nothing’s going to change here.”

This had completely the opposite of its intended effect on Lapis, and his eyes widened in alarm. “What ‘this’? What do you mean? Why would things change?”

Erik put his arms around the slave more firmly, after scoffing at him of course. “Hey. I said you _don’t_ have to worry—“

“Excuse me, Erik,” Lapis risked interrupting, “but could you explain what I’m not supposed to worry about?” He was _really_ getting worried now. Had the company’s stock price crashed, or—

Erik sighed. “Bill Nash was here the other day,” he recapped. “I know you heard us.”

“Yes,” Lapis agreed tensely. The argument was very unusual, because Mr. Nash was one of the few business people Erik respected.

“He called a Board meeting,” Erik went on disjointedly. “He wanted them to push me out.”

Lapis sucked in a breath, shocked. “But I thought you and Mr. Nash got along!” he ventured. People even called him Erik’s ‘father figure’ sometimes, since his own father had died years earlier.

Erik allowed that this discontinuity was indeed surprising. “We _did_ get along,” he confirmed, “until he screwed me over. He never liked the new computer,” Erik revealed, which Lapis also hadn’t guessed. “I didn’t realize it for a long time, but he’s always been working against me. Okay, not _always_ ,” he clarified, in an attempt at accuracy, “but for the last several months at least. He hated the commercial.”

“But everyone said the commercial was wonderful, Erik!” Lapis protested. It was a little dark for him, but its scope and vision had wowed the press, and they spoke of it in glowing terms usually reserved for Oscar-nominated short films.

“I know, I know,” Erik agreed. “But he never wanted it to be made, it turns out. And he didn’t want to give the new computer the support it needs, so of course it wasn’t selling well! It’s too expensive, and people don’t understand well enough what it can do. But those things have very simple solutions,” Erik insisted. He was getting worked up again, which Lapis didn’t think was healthy, and he massaged Erik’s hands soothingly. Erik closed his eyes and took a breath, and when he opened them he seemed calmer.

“What happened at the Board meeting?” Lapis persisted. “Why did they call it now?”

“Bill called the meeting now, he was supposed to be on a plane to China, but _someone_ must have tipped him off,” Erik continued darkly, and Lapis pitied whoever that was, if Erik learned their identity. “I almost had the Board right where I wanted them, ready to vote Bill out, but he got the jump on me.”

Lapis blinked at him without comprehension. “You said—he _wanted_ to push you out—“

“And so he did,” Erik concluded, as if it was really that simple. “He said it was him or me, and they voted for him, so…” Lapis did not know what ‘so’ led to. “So I’m fired,” Erik was forced to spell out.

“They-they _fired_ you?” Lapis repeated faintly. “Erik—they can’t _fire_ you, it’s _your_ company—“

Erik pulled him close, trying to still his agitated bouncing. “They can, and they did,” he stated firmly in Lapis’s ear. “But we’re going to be okay anyway, so can you calm down?”

He said this in a very soothing tone, which was just ridiculous because _Erik_ was the one who had been dealt with so unfairly, Lapis should be comforting _him_. “I’m so sorry, Erik,” he finally said, hugging him. He tried to keep the tears out of his voice as he knew Erik disliked that. “I’m so sorry they treated you that way. How could they do that to you, Erik?”

“Didn’t seem to find it difficult,” Erik noted thoughtfully. He rubbed Lapis’s back. “Are you crying? Stop crying. There’s nothing to cry about.”

“I’m sorry,” Lapis said again, sniffling a little. “It’s just—it’s so sudden. And so _mean_ of them.” Sometimes Erik was mean to people himself, Lapis recognized that, but it was mainly because he was so passionate, and gifted, and saw the world in a different way from other people. And he never hit anyone, so that was acceptable in Lapis’s book.

Erik chuckled a little at this comment, and turned Lapis so he was sitting on his lap, leaning against his chest. “The Board never liked me,” he reminded Lapis, which was well-known. “They were the brainy business people, I was just the geek with ideas.”

“Your ideas are wonderful, Erik,” Lapis vowed. Not every single one was entirely practical with today’s technology, but Erik was a _visionary_. Lapis didn’t understand why people who were supposed to be smart, weren’t smart enough to see _that_. “And I thought Mr. Nash agreed with you about things.”

“He did, until he didn’t,” Erik explained succinctly. “I wanted him to manage the Board for me. But, I didn’t pay enough attention to managing _him_ ,” he admitted. Let no one say Erik Lehnsherr couldn’t see his mistakes. And learn from them.

“It’s so shocking,” Lapis empathized. He just couldn’t picture the avuncular, albeit whip-smart, man turning on Erik like that. “Mr. Nash was always very nice to me.” Some people thought that because Lapis was a slave, they could treat him like _their_ slave—Erik was always quick to correct such people.

“Yes, he was,” Erik allowed, kissing Lapis’s temple. “Nice, and respectful. That’s how people _should_ be to you.” Lapis cuddled Erik closer, because how could he _not_ love a master who told him that sort of thing, and really believed it? Slaves could not expect respect.

“Will we have to move?” Lapis asked tentatively, and Erik made an exasperated noise.

“What’s the first thing I said?” he demanded, and Lapis thought back.

“Go back to sleep,” he recalled, which Erik refused to be amused by.

“I said you didn’t have to worry about anything, that nothing is going to change,” Erik told him again. “We’re not moving, we’re not losing any staff. This isn’t like getting fired from a burger joint,” he asserted, but Lapis had no frame of reference for that, either. “I’m getting a severance package, plus I have money from other things. We’ll be fine.” Lapis took comfort from Erik’s use of ‘we,’ though he hadn’t really been worried about being sold himself—he didn’t cost much to maintain and he wouldn’t fetch much on the open market.

But then a new alarming thought struck him. “Oh my G-d,” he blurted, startling Erik. “What about the children?” Erik had a large number of dependents, not just the children but also some of the mothers who didn’t work outside the home—

Erik made another, louder noise of exasperation. “The kids will be fine,” he insisted, rubbing Lapis’s arms, “as long as they don’t decide to start college next week.” They were barely in elementary school, so that seemed unlikely. “Would you please relax? Honest to G-d, you are more upset about this than I am.” Lapis felt that was probably a bit of an exaggeration, but if it helped Erik to act like it was true, he was okay with that.

“Well, what are you going to do now?” Lapis wanted to know.

“First, I’m going to go to sleep,” Erik replied pragmatically, “because I can’t get anything done this time of night. No one else is awake.” Lapis felt some sleep would probably indeed be good for him. “Then, in the morning, I’m going to make some calls,” Erik planned. “I need some people, like Grace and Alana, to quit their jobs.”

“Why?” Lapis asked in confusion. Alana certainly _ought_ to keep her job at the company, now that Erik had lost his, whatever he might claim about his finances.

“Because I need them to help me start a _new_ company!” Erik revealed, with a certain amount of glee. “Change is part of life, you know. Out with the old, in with the new.”

“You’re starting a new company?” Lapis repeated, feeling vastly relieved that he had a plan already. “For computers?”

“Yes,” Erik confirmed. He turned Lapis back around so he could look him in the eye again. “I am going to make something new, and really amazing.” This was not so much a dream or even a plan, as a vow. “And Bill is going to find that he does very badly without me, you wait and see—and he is going to need my amazing thing.”

Lapis grinned. “And you won’t give it to them,” he predicted, but Erik shook his head.

“Well, I certainly won’t _give_ it to them,” he allowed precisely. “But they might be able to _buy_ it from me. For the right price. Like control of the company.” A slow grin, shark-like with too many teeth, spread across his face, and Lapis felt simultaneously inspired by his confidence, and sorry for the people he was targeting. A little afraid for them, even.

“What’s-what’s the amazing thing?” Lapis asked eagerly, to distract himself from the unsettling combination of feelings.

Erik shrugged. “I dunno yet.” He didn’t seem worried about this and yawned. “I’ll figure it out in the morning. Are you okay to go to sleep now?”

Lapis hurried to turn off the light and settle down under the blankets. “Yes, I’m okay,” he decided. If he could be with Erik, he would be okay.

~*~*~*~*~*~

_~*~*~ Lapis@23 ~*~*~_

They pulled up in front of the respectable, though unremarkable, apartment building, and Erik sat in the car with the engine off, gathering his strength for the coming trial. “You told her we were coming?” he checked with Lapis.

“Yes,” the slave assured him. “She said this would be a good time.”

Erik turned to him. “A good time?” he repeated indignantly. “When would be a _bad_ time? Why does she get to dictate _times_ —“

Lapis put a hand on his arm. “You’re here to do something nice, remember?” he suggested gently. “Something nice for Lisa.” He knew this task made Erik nervous, and there was very little that made Erik nervous, and he would rather be angry than nervous. But that wasn’t really conducive to his goal today.

Erik took a breath. “Right,” he agreed. “Let’s go.”

They got out of the car and walked up to the appropriate door (Lapis pointed it out when Erik headed for the wrong one) and Erik knocked firmly. After about a millisecond he started to get impatient waiting and Lapis had to restrain him from knocking again. After a moment Katherine opened the door, her expression deeply suspicious.

“Hi,” Erik greeted cheerfully.

“Hi,” she returned warily. “What’s this about?”

“Can we come in?” Erik pressed instead, refusing to be sidetracked from the scene he wanted to set.

She could hardly deny him entry, seeing as how he paid for everything, but she didn’t have to be happy about it, and she moved aside with resignation. Lapis tried to catch her eye, so he could nod and smile in greeting, but Katherine usually ignored him.

Not so with everyone in the house, however. “Lapis!” Lisa shouted in delight, racing to hug him, and he scooped her up with a laugh.

“Hello, Sunshine! I’m so excited to see you today!” he told her.

“Are we going to the park?” she wanted to know.

“Yes, that’s the plan,” he assured her. “Do you like the park?”

“Yes, they have the best swing set!” Lisa enthused. “Will you push me on the swing? Usually I have to do it all myself—“

“Why don’t you push her on the swing?” Erik asked of Katherine as Lisa continued to burble to Lapis.

“Because I’m busy working, or cleaning—“ she began to explain, thinking it obvious.

“You send her to the park _alone_?”

Clearly Erik disapproved of this, and Katherine began to get defensive. “It’s a very safe neighborhood—“

Erik started to interrupt her and Lapis cleared his throat pointedly, which refocused Erik on him, and also on Lisa in his arms. “Hi,” Erik told the girl stiffly.

“Hi,” she responded in kind.

“How are you?”

“I’m okay.”

Conversation threatened to stall. “We got your picture,” Lapis swooped in, talking to Lisa. “That was so nice of you to send us one!”

Thus cued, Erik leapt in. “The house with the rabbits inside it,” he described of Lisa’s drawing, artfully rendered in crayon. “I put it in my office. Why are the rabbits inside the house?”

“That’s where they live,” Lisa explained. “If they lived outside, the dogs would get them.”

“Seems logical,” Erik shrugged. His gaze switched to Lapis. “Are you going to the park?”

“Yes, if that’s alright,” the slave confirmed, glancing at Katherine in turn.

“Sure, go to the park,” she sighed. “Lisa, shoes.” Lapis set the little girl down and she ran off.

“Do you have food?” Erik asked Lapis. “Did you bring a banana?”

“Yes, I brought some snacks,” Lapis confirmed, even though they weren’t trekking across Antarctica. Before Erik could demand it he pulled out his chapstick and applied it.

They all stood there in awkward silence until Lisa raced back in, dragging her coat behind her. “Are you ready to go?” Lapis asked, kneeling automatically to help her.

“Yes, let’s go to the park!” she insisted enthusiastically. “I want to show you the swings and the slide and the merry-go-round—Bye!” she called back from the door.

“Bye,” Erik and Katherine replied simultaneously. Then she rolled her eyes at him, which he thought was not very respectful.

After the door banged shut behind Lisa and Lapis, Erik moved on to the next phase of his plan and took off his coat, making himself comfortable on the couch.

“Well?” Katherine prompted.

“Can I have a drink?” he asked politely, and she sighed and went back to the kitchen, returning to plunk a glass of water down in front of him ungraciously. Then she sat down in the chair opposite him, waiting aggressively.

Erik took a sip of water just to draw it out a little longer. “Well,” he finally said, looking Katherine in the eye, “I wanted to apologize to you. About Lisa. I’ve handled it badly, and I want to make things better. Can we change Lisa’s last name? Would you like a house instead?”

Katherine blinked at him for a long moment, her expression shocked. Erik resolved to be patient, even though her low processing capacity annoyed him. “You… apologize?” she finally repeated, dumbfounded. And then immediately she began to look for how he might be tricking her—he could see it on her face, and that was just insulting. “What—why? Why now? What brought this on?” she sputtered.

Erik was prepared for this question, however. “Well, I’ve had a lot of time to think lately,” he explained reflectively. What with being fired from _his own company_ and all. “And, I contacted my biological mother—you remember I’m adopted?” he checked with Katherine.

“Yes, I remember,” she agreed, still apparently mystified at how things were connected.

“I had some people look into it and I tracked her down. It was kind of difficult,” Erik added, but he didn’t want to brag. “I had the information for a while, but, I dunno, the time didn’t seem right. And then, one day, everything just came together, and I opened the envelope—“ He was trying to describe a very important moment in his life, and Katherine was _fidgeting_. Well, some people couldn’t appreciate what he went through, what else was new?

“Anyway, I contacted her, and we went to Wisconsin to meet her—it’s weird, she’s from Wisconsin, and my dad was from Wisconsin too—my real dad, I mean, Jakob Lehnsherr,” he clarified. “And then, we went to New York to meet my sister, Emma—she’s really great, we have a lot in common actually—she runs this fashion company, I really think it’s going to do well.”

“You have a sister?” Katherine echoed, three steps behind.

Erik resisted the urge to repeat the information he’d already given—it wasn’t relevant to the current situation, really. “Anyway, finding out more about my biological family got me to thinking a lot, and I wanted Lisa to spend more time with her brothers, and my mom,” he continued, on point. “I want to set up a contract about her. She could come over more,” he added, waiting to see what Katherine’s reaction was. Lapis was quite good with the children, so Erik didn’t feel as overwhelmed by them.

“Wait, wait,” Katherine insisted. “What about your biological father? Did you find out about him?”

It was nice she was interested, Erik tried to tell himself, even if she wasn’t focusing on the important point right now. Lapis would be so proud of him later, for his patience. “Haven’t gotten into that much,” he dismissed. “I don’t think he’s really in the picture.” There was no need, he felt, to tell Katherine (of all people) that his biological father was, by massive cosmic coincidence, the proprietor of one of his favorite restaurants. Since he was trying to keep that quiet in general—at this point the man might find reason to sue him for some ready cash. “So. What do you think about my offer?” he prompted her.

“You’re prepared to acknowledge that Lisa is your daughter?” Katherine checked, her eyes narrow.

“Yes.”

“Finally? After all this time?” she needled.

“It hasn’t been _that_ long—“ Erik reasoned.

“And that I did _not_ sleep with twenty-eight percent of American men?”

Erik rolled his eyes. She always got fixated on unimportant things, that was her problem. One of them, anyway. “Obviously I don’t know what you _did_ ,” he noted precisely, “but the _outcome_ is that Lisa is my daughter. Do you want her provided for or not?”

Katherine always had an unpleasant expression on her face—right now it was like she’d found a bug on the bottom of her shoe, even though Erik was trying to do something _nice_. He found it hard to believe he’d ever been attracted to her—maybe she felt the same way about him. Hmm, that was novel. But Erik didn’t really care.

“What sort of terms are we talking about here?” Katherine finally asked, and Erik drew out a folded contract with flourish.

“Have your lawyer look it over,” he recommended, because he didn’t want to start answering a bunch of inane questions from her, and listen to her argue when she didn’t understand something. “It’s a standard agreement, with monthly payments, regular custody sharing, legal acknowledgement, etc..”

She poured over it like a squirrel with a new nut, looking for the tasty bits. “I assume it’s open to negotiation,” she commented, as if she had a whole lot more she planned to ask for.

Erik summoned patience. “Yes,” he agreed briskly. “But don’t push it.” She looked like she was going to balk already, so he tried a redirection technique Lapis favored. “Do you want a house?” he asked again. “You could have a house.”

“And you want to change Lisa’s last name?” Katherine recalled.

“Yes,” Erik told her firmly. “That’s very important.” All the other children had his last name.

“That might be okay,” Katherine allowed, and Erik grinned.

“Lisa Lehnsherr,” he tried. “I like the alliteration—“

“I was thinking Lisa Thompson- _hyphen_ -Lehnsherr,” Katherine countered, no doubt feeling very crafty.

Erik immediately disagreed. “Hyphen? No,” he denied. “Hyphens are stupid. Computers don’t like hyphens!” he insisted at Katherine’s look. “She’ll spend the rest of her life correcting it on forms.”

Katherine’s expression was meant to be withering. “If only you knew someone who was influential in the computer industry,” she commented flatly, “who could help with that.”

Erik rolled his eyes but conceded the point. “Fine,” he agreed shortly. “She can have the hyphen.”

Having won one skirmish, Katherine was starting to get really excited about all the other possibilities before her, since Erik’s standard agreement was far more generous than what he gave her now. Then she tried to be mature and temper herself, Erik saw it etched painfully on her face. “Well, we should _ask_ Lisa when she comes back,” she decided. Perhaps he had given in too easily, and she just had to make it more difficult. “If she _wants_ to change her name.”

Katherine’s power trip was small and pathetic, Erik felt. “Ask her?” he scoffed. “She’s six years old, what does she know about anything?”

“She knows she’s seven, for one thing,” Katherine shot back tartly.

“Right. When’s her birthday?” Erik checked. “I hope it doesn’t overlap with any of the others, I usually take them out to eat.”

“You sent a gift,” Katherine assured him, with some sarcasm.

“That was Lapis,” Erik corrected. He suspected she was aware of that, but he felt she just didn’t appreciate all that his slave did for them. “He’s so great with the kids,” Erik praised. “He’s really been instrumental in me seeing them more often. Also, they’re getting older and starting to be more interesting,” he added. “Frank in particular is really bright—“ He got the sense that Katherine, selfishly, didn’t want to hear about that.

“You said a house?” she reminded him.

“And someone to clean it,” he threw in, looking around. Obviously she needed some help in that area.

Katherine was still peering at the contract. “You could go over that later,” Erik pointed out. “With your lawyer.”

“There’s nothing in here about college,” Katherine responded with a frown.

Erik took a deep breath, and the hesitation made Katherine look up. “She’s seven, she won’t need college for a while,” he assured her. “Of course, I will pay for college, if she’s college material. I dropped out after a semester!” he reminded Katherine, before she squawked about him insulting Lisa. He waited another three seconds, then popped up. “I’m going to do your dishes.”

This took a moment for Katherine to process, engrossed in the legalese as she was. “What? No.”

Erik paused with dish soap in hand. “You _don’t_ want me to do your dishes? Are _you_ going to do them, then, because I swear to G-d, this pile is a health hazard—“

“They’re only from last night,” Katherine insisted. He started moving the dishes and filling the sink. “You could buy us a dishwasher,” she suggested.

“Oh, I will,” Erik promised. He was certain all the others had dishwashers as well, but with Katherine it always felt like he was being taken for a ride.

“Is health insurance mentioned?” she persisted, flipping through the pages. “I need to go to the doctor, I have a sinus infection.”

Erik rolled his sleeves up and began to tackle the dirty dishes, which were slightly more manageable than Katherine right now. “Go to Dr. Wing,” he suggested. That was always an option. “I gave you his number.”

“He’s not a specialist.”

“He can prescribe antibiotics,” Erik countered. “Magic crystal healers are _not_ covered, by the way.” He was all for alternatives to the mainstream, but he required that they have a little science behind them. Katherine had much lower standards. “What have you been feeding her?” he wanted to know, peering at a plate. “There’s a lot of grease here.”

“I have to account for every purchase with receipts?” she asked in disapproval. “Is that what this means?”

This was exactly what Erik had been trying to avoid. “There are some nuances that your lawyer would be better able to explain—” he started to tell her, and she gave him a poisonous look. “Yes, that’s what it means,” he agreed shortly, plunging a plate into the water. “I want to know what you’re spending my money on.” That was only fair.

“That’s too intrusive and controlling,” Katherine judged, and Erik actually laughed as he turned to her, wiping his hands on a dishtowel.

“You have not even _begun_ to see intrusive and controlling,” he warned her. “For example, you might wonder what happens if you refuse to sign the contract.” He had her attention now. “Do you feed Lisa vegetables?” he zigzagged. “I don’t see any vegetable remains here. Lapis says children need to eat vegetables, even if they don’t like them.”

“What happens if I don’t sign this?” Katherine demanded tightly.

Erik went back to the dishes, scrubbing mercilessly at a pot with crusted-on rice. “What happens is, _I_ take Lisa, and leave you out in the cold.”

“You’re always threatening that,” Katherine observed coolly. “But you wouldn’t want her to actually live with you. You wouldn’t have the first clue what to do with her!”

“You think it’s a bluff, call it and see what happens,” Erik shrugged, ferociously casual. “Lapis would look after her,” he planned, trying to sound as if he was eager for this to occur. “Or one of the others, Maria maybe. You remember Maria?” Katherine had never worked for him, but they had met through mutual friends, including Frank’s mother. “So put the contract down until your lawyer can see it, and pick up a f-----g dust rag.”

Katherine gave him a long glare, and he easily stared her down, even while scraping at a skillet. With a huff she threw the contract on the couch, stood, and got a broom from the closet. Erik kept his mouth shut, but he assumed the lesson was clear: from now on, if she wanted his money, there would be a lot more of doing what he said.

**

“Do you think they’re arguing?” Lisa asked Lapis as he pushed her on the swing. That was what happened almost every time Katherine and Erik were together, so it was a fair question.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Lapis said anyway. He really _hoped_ not. “Your daddy had some good news for your mum, about money, so I think they’ll both be happy.”

“Lapis, can we play together more often?” Lisa wanted to know, which warmed him all the way through. “I don’t have many people to play with here…”

“I would really like that, Sunshine,” he promised her. “I hope you can come stay at your daddy’s more, and we can play then.” _If_ Erik hadn’t completely screwed up the conversation—though if he had, and Katherine balked at signing the contract, he claimed he would just take Lisa anyway, which was what he dared to term a ‘win-win.’

“Are you hungry?” he asked her by way of distraction. “Let’s have a snack.” He checked his watch. “Then we’ll go back and see how they’re doing.” With any luck, there would be a little more peace and harmony in Lisa’s life in the future.

~*~*~*~*~*~

_~*~*~ Lapis@25 ~*~*~_

Lapis could hear the yelling from behind the closed door. “Let’s move down here,” he suggested to Lisa, carrying her backpack further away. The utilitarian hallway was buzzing with people in headsets carrying clipboards, preparing for the big presentation, but most didn’t bother about one slave and a nine-year-old girl, however out of place they seemed.

“My dad yells a lot,” Lisa observed, her attention diverted from the homework she was showing Lapis.

“Yes,” he agreed. “You’ve spelled a word wrong, should I tell you which one?” There were few he was sure of.

“Yes!” she demanded, slightly horrified. He pointed it out and she corrected it, her cursive well-practiced and precise. She was a bit of a perfectionist, no doubt where she got _that_ from.

Unfortunately the distraction did not last long. “My mom yells a lot, too,” Lisa told him, her tone slightly confessional, and Lapis put an arm around her easily and hugged her close.

“It took me a while to get used to your dad’s yelling,” he admitted dryly. “My previous owner used to yell, and hit me, and I thought your dad was going to do the same.”

“Did he?” Lisa asked, almost as if she was afraid to know.

“No,” Lapis assured her firmly. “Your dad would never hit me.”

“Do you love him?” she wanted to know, and Lapis smiled at her.

“Yes. And I love you!” He kissed her head, making her giggle. “You want to show me your math homework?”

She shuffled her folders around; they were sparkly and left glitter on everything they touched. “Am I going to get in trouble for not being at school?” she worried. “My dad said I was _truant_.”

“No, it’s the grown-ups who get in trouble for that,” Lapis promised her. “Today’s a big day, your mom thought it was important that you be here.”

“She just wants to ask for more money,” Lisa assessed gloomily, with far too much cynicism for a girl her age.

Lapis hugged her tighter; he could offer little more comfort than that. “Let your parents worry about that,” he advised. “They both want what’s best for you.” He hoped that sentiment didn’t ring hollow for her. “Explain to me how you did this one,” he requested, of one of the long division problems neatly lined up on the page.

They were partway through the second problem when the door to the dressing room burst open and Katherine came stomping out. “I have to take Lisa to school!” she announced self-righteously, likely as an escape from an argument she was losing. “All I want is what you give the others—Oh my G-d, where’s Lisa? Where’s my daughter?!”

Lapis sprang up from the couch and waved his arm. “She’s here, she’s right here—“

Erik had immediately stepped into the hall at Katherine’s cry, but now rolled his eyes at the theatrics. “She’s right there, I told you Lapis had her.”

The slave was hustling Lisa back to her mother. He was in a difficult position, being on Erik’s “team” and thus often Katherine’s enemy, but he tried to be polite and respectful to her, even though she was the most troublesome of Erik’s children’s mothers.

“Come on, we have to go to school,” Katherine told her daughter sharply, not even looking at Lapis.

“I have to say good-bye!” Lisa protested, and turned to give the slave a hug. He knelt to embrace her. “Good-bye, Lapis.”

“Good-bye, Sunshine. Have a nice day at school.”

Then she turned to Erik, who had been just about to escape back into the dressing room. “Come on, Lisa!” Katherine insisted, from several feet down the hall.

The girl threw her arms around Erik, who clearly was not expecting this and had no idea what to do about it. Lapis covered his smirk with his hand, still kneeling.

“I want to come and live with you,” Lisa said, quiet but distinct, as she stared up at Erik. Then, before he could react, she turned and hurried off to her mother and out the door.

Erik and Lapis were still staring after her. “Shall we go over the speech?” Grace prompted, materializing next to Erik.

Instead Erik turned to Lapis. “Did you hear that?” he asked. His expression had gone from shock to horror to a steely determination in a matter of moments, and Lapis did not like the look of it.

“Yes,” he agreed, uncertain if they were going to tell Grace about this new twist.

“Make it happen,” Erik ordered him. Then, “I have the speech memorized.”

“You deviate sometimes,” Grace pointed out, following him back into the dressing room, “and sometimes those deviations make our investors very nervous—“ She was, perhaps fortunately, oblivious to the variety of emotions Lapis had been left with—anger at Erik’s casual delegation warring with excitement about having Lisa in the house. And Katherine would make things unpleasant, and Lisa would inevitably be disappointed with her father’s lack of attention.

Maybe he was selling Erik too short, Lapis hoped as he rose and set about searching for a phone. Surely he wouldn’t agree to this unexpected request, if he didn’t think he could handle it. Erik’s decisions were always quick but usually sound. Time to contact the lawyer, then.

**

Everyone in Erik’s employ, it seemed, was focused on the big product announcement he was doing today. Except for the few who had been rather suddenly sent scrambling to get Lisa in his possession, though discreetly so as not to set off the press. Although once Katherine found out she was likely to take her case to the public.

Steeling himself Lapis entered the shop where Katherine worked (this week). It smelled like the incense they sold, sickly sweet and heavy, and he threaded his way around the furniture pieces. Right now Erik was probably fielding questions from the audience after his presentation, giving the press bombastic quotes and Grace a heart attack. Undoubtedly he was not thinking about Lapis or his quest at all; his ability to compartmentalize was certainly tied to his professional success.

Katherine was stocking a shelf with wine glasses when she saw Lapis, and gave a double-take at seeing him out of place. Sometimes he delivered checks for Erik, though, so she wasn’t immediately suspicious.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, looking around for witnesses.

“This is rather sudden,” Lapis warned, skipping the pleasantries to pull a thick sheaf of papers from his coat pocket. “But Erik would like Lisa to live with him for a little—“

“No,” Katherine said reflexively. “No, we talked, I didn’t throw the bowl _at_ Lisa, I didn’t throw it _at_ anyone—“

Lapis had heard that bit of intelligence almost as soon as Erik had—he didn’t know where Erik had gotten it from, and the details seemed a bit muddled, but he was glad Erik had confronted her about it. “It’s just for a little while,” Lapis countered persuasively, “so they can spend some time together—“

“That is bulls—t,” Katherine hissed at him, glancing over at her boss at the register. This was of course true, and Lapis’s forte where Erik was concerned. “He just—he wants to punish me, he’s always wanted to punish me, he doesn’t punish the others—“

She was getting worked up and Lapis tried to calm her. “It’s just for a little while, until you can talk things over—“

“Talk things over? With whom?” Katherine demanded. “There’s no talking, she’s my daughter and I won’t agree, he has to pay anyway—“ She stopped when she saw Lapis’s eyes slide significantly towards the paper he carried. “What’s that?”

“It’s from his lawyers,” Lapis admitted and she snatched it from him, struggling to read the legalese. “Your agreement allows him to—“

“He’s already done it,” Katherine realized with horror. “He can’t—he just—how did he—“ She looked up and saw Lapis standing there, like he was always standing there with Erik, so patient and polite even as he delivered bad news. The worst news. News that he must’ve had a hand in making, because she’d been following Erik’s presentation on the radio and knew he was still at the opera house. Her eyes hardened and with a quick movement she slapped the slave across the face.

Lapis flashed back to another lifetime and struggled to stay upright, fighting the urge to grovel or curl up on the ground protectively to prevent further attack. He had meant to tell her that the movers were at her house right now—technically Erik’s house—packing up Lisa’s room. He had meant to tell her that he would be picking Lisa up at school soon, and warn Katherine that if she interfered it could be considered attempted kidnapping. But instead the only thing he could focus on was turning around and walking out of the shop without bumping into anything, his jaw held tensely and the sting reverberating across his cheek. He thought he heard his name called after him, but he answered only to Erik, so he didn’t stop.

Lapis threw himself into the car, heart pounding as though someone was chasing him. Quickly he locked the doors, imagining Katherine following him out of the store. “Let’s go,” he told Steve upfront.

The car started rolling and Lapis finally relaxed slightly, digging out a glass and some ice from the wet bar. A scotch might be nice about now, but he knew better than to indulge without Erik’s permission. He held the cold glass up to his cheek.

“You okay?” Steve asked worriedly.

“She hit me,” Lapis blurted, trying to calm himself.

“No s—t?” Steve replied with alarm. “You give her the paper?”

“Yes,” Lapis assured him. He checked his list to reassure himself of the proper order of the world. “Let’s go to Lisa’s school now.”

“Sure thing,” Steve agreed. “Northridge?”

“That’s right.” Erik had bought them a building after Lisa was admitted to the private academy for gifted students.

At the school Lapis went first to the office to explain the situation, gave them time to read his documents and make some phone calls. Perhaps it was unusual to have a slave delivering legal documents; but that didn’t invalidate them. Once approved, Lapis went down to Lisa’s classroom and waited quietly outside the door. He’d been there before, on Family Nights—Erik had not made it yet, but sent Lapis in his stead. So really Katherine had a point about Erik’s motivations, which were still somewhat opaque to Lapis.

The bell rang and children poured out of every classroom, laughing and shouting and banging their lockers. Lapis had not had much formal education himself, so it was all a bit foreign to him. “Lisa!” he called when she went by.

She turned, and her eyes widened when she saw him, and then she smiled and ran to give him a hug. He found himself clutching her tightly, wondering where her kind heart had come from. “Are you here to take me to my dad’s house?” she guessed excitedly.

“That’s right,” he assured her. “Get your things. Do you have homework tonight?”

When they stepped outside Lapis kept her hand tightly in his, and couldn’t help glancing around warily. Katherine tended to be a bit helpless, more a complainer than a doer, but she had a lawyer who was always eager to get a bite out of Erik. “Was my mom mad?” Lisa asked worriedly.

“She was upset,” Lapis confirmed carefully. “But not at you, Sunshine.” He had not told anyone about Lisa’s request, even though it might have carried more weight; Erik wouldn’t have wanted him to, he thought, and Erik was mercurial enough that people who knew him didn’t question this sudden decision. He just didn’t want anyone to suggest that Lisa was somehow causing trouble, because that was just too mean. “What fun things shall we do tonight?” he asked her with forced cheer, packing her into the car. He would definitely feel better once they were safely at home.

**

Lapis couldn’t help obsessively checking in the bathroom mirror, contorting his head and neck to see if Katherine had left a mark. He wanted, and yet didn’t want, to tell Erik what had happened—it seemed like it would be better if the information was _drawn_ out of him, rather than him complaining on his own. Erik would say that was ridiculous and inefficient. But still.

“What are you doing?” Erik called from the bed. “Do you have a zit? Put that stuff on it. Dr. Wing said not to pick at them.”

Lapis left the bathroom, finding Erik scribbling notes in a folder. “You told me to remind you not to work in bed,” he pointed out carefully.

Erik snorted without looking up. “Well take it away from me, then,” he challenged flatly.

Lapis hesitated, and hated that he hesitated, and told himself it would be alright. Then he grabbed the folder out of Erik’s hand.

Erik’s head snapped up in surprise, but his expression quickly changed to a smirk. “Time for bed?” he surmised, handing over the pen.

Lapis set them out of reach. “Yes.” Then he joined Erik in bed, straddling his lap comfortably, though his thoughts were preoccupied.

Erik was always very focused. “We have to celebrate,” he declared, nuzzling Lapis’s neck, his tough feather-light. “A very successful product launch.”

Lapis’s hands traveled up Erik’s chest as he scooted closer. “And we have to celebrate Lisa staying with us,” he added. Erik had managed to see her very little that evening, but Lapis would make sure that changed in the future.

Erik pulled back with a frown. “Is that something we celebrate with sex?” he asked. “It seems like that might be inappropriate.” Usually Erik did not pick up on those things, and Lapis chuckled a little.

“You’re right, it should be a more general celebration of things,” he decided.

This was good enough for Erik and he pulled Lapis in for a kiss, hands sliding into his hair to direct him. As the kiss deepened Erik rolled him down to the mattress and started to slide his pajama bottoms off; Lapis knew he would have to say something soon, because he was not concentrating on the task at hand.

“Erik,” he finally said. A noise of acknowledgement met him, Erik’s mouth being otherwise occupied. “I-I went to Katherine’s store today—“ Now Erik made an exasperated noise, indicating his displeasure with this topic. “—to give her the papers—“

Erik pulled back, leaning on one elbow to look down at the slave. “I don’t know why you want to talk about this instead of having sex,” he admitted. “But I suppose it must be important.” Lapis grinned spontaneously at this, popping up to kiss Erik again. “Mixed messages!” Erik complained when he pulled back. “Okay, so you delivered the papers, yes?” Lapis nodded. “How did she take it?”

The slave grimaced first. “Not well,” he replied.

“Not really a surprise, she never takes things well,” Erik judged. “Alright, spit it out,” he ordered, seeing Lapis squirming. “Did she say something that hurt your feelings?”

“She slapped me,” Lapis blurted, then dared to glance up at Erik.

His eyes had widened. “She hit you? Sit up.”

Lapis realized he should have predicted this, he was just too preoccupied with replaying the moment in his head. “I don’t think there’s a mark,” he insisted as Erik examined the indicated cheek closely. “I mean, it wasn’t that hard—“

“Did you go to the doctor?” Erik demanded, seemingly serious.

“No, I—“

“Did you tell anyone when it happened?”

This sounded more like a legal angle. “I told Steve, when I left,” Lapis recalled. “Oh, I put some ice on it in the car.”

Erik gazed at him assessingly. “She’s mentally unstable,” he remarked, a common judgment of his for Katherine. “First throwing that bowl at Lisa, now hitting you.” He reached for the bedside phone. “You need to tell Bernie about this—“

Lapis stopped him. “Oh, it really—it wasn’t anything,” he claimed shakily. Because it wasn’t, in his life a mere slap was nothing.

“It _was_ —“

“I was taking her child away—“

Erik stilled and fixed him with one of his x-ray gazes. Then, thankfully, he put the phone back. “She shouldn’t have hit you,” he stated firmly. “Don’t make excuses for her. People are supposed to have more self-control than that.”

Lapis saw that something was expected in response and nodded quickly. “It-it was wrong of her,” he added tentatively.

Erik pulled him closer. “Yes, it was,” he agreed. “You don’t have to deal with her anymore, Bernie can deal with her.”

Lapis relaxed into his arms. “No, it’s okay,” he claimed, feeling more comfortable. “I was—upset about it before, but I feel better now.” He understood now that Erik wouldn’t hit him; but it was gratifying to be reminded of how seriously he took this.

“You’re going to tell Bernie about this,” Erik reiterated, his lips brushing Lapis’s forehead, “but it can wait until tomorrow.” That was his idea of compromise.

“Okay,” Lapis agreed, enjoying the feeling of Erik’s arms around him.

Such contentment could not last long, however. “Do you want to keep doing this, or do you want to have sex?” Erik quizzed.

“Can we—can we keep doing this?” Lapis dared, snuggling in.

“Yes,” Erik allowed, “but you have to turn the lights off. I’ll probably fall asleep soon.” He did get tired sometimes, after a big day like today, and would fall asleep quickly if he didn’t keep moving.

“Okay.” Lapis hurried to settle everything and then got back in bed, cuddling against Erik. “You did really well today,” he added in praise. “With your presentation.”

“Oh, right, I guess you missed it,” Erik realized. “Did you watch the video yet? There were some parts where the slides were slow.” Erik had very high standards. “Hey, you managed to get hold of Lisa today, so you did well, too,” he added, perhaps a bit belatedly, but the sentiment was sincere.

Lapis hugged him. “I was happy to do it,” he insisted. “I love Lisa.”

“Good. Uh—what do we do with her tomorrow?” he checked.

“I’ll take her to school,” Lapis promised fondly. “But, can you come home a bit early, and have supper with her?”

He could tell Erik wanted to say no. “Bring her to the office after school,” he countered. “She can learn something.”

“Okay,” Lapis agreed, sensing this was the best offer he would get right now. Lisa might sleep at their house for the time being, but he was going to have to be creative and persistent if he wanted father and daughter to actually spend time together.

~*~*~*~*~*~

“Did you know,” Erik began, apropos of nothing as they were freshening up after a little interlude in his office, “that the company gives an award every year to the employee who best puts up with me?”

Lapis caught Erik’s eye in the mirror and turned slowly, trying to remain casual. “Yes, I did know that,” he agreed matter-of-factly. “How do you feel about that?”

“It seems fair,” Erik judged. Lapis wondered if he would now be _harder_ on people, knowing they might get some kind of reward for it. He shooed the slave away from the sink so he could brush his teeth. “Do you think I should contribute something to it?” Erik asked, toothpaste in hand.

“No,” Lapis answered immediately. He didn’t know if Erik meant money or a speech or what, but his response was still the same. “No, you should not get involved at all.”

Mouth full of toothpaste, Erik made a demanding, questioning noise. “Because… if you get involved, it biases the selection,” Lapis tried, hoping Erik might understand this concept.

“I could make suggestions,” Erik offered, after rinsing.

“No,” Lapis repeated, this time as if he was doing Erik a favor. He started to put on his tie for him. “Just don’t bother about it. Let people have a bit of fun on their own.”

“Have _you_ ever won? You should,” Erik declared, and Lapis chuckled before realizing he was serious.

“No,” he admitted. “Thank you, though—“

“Why not?” Clearly if Lapis was not considered worthy of an award for putting up with Erik, the system was flawed.

“I’m not an employee,” Lapis pointed out. And before Erik could complain that this was splitting hairs, the slave added in a flirtatious tone, “I have ways of persuading you that employees don’t.” At least, not ethically.

Erik just blinked at him, which killed so many of his innuendos. “You’ve never gotten me to change my mind about something with sex.”

Lapis decided to allow him to continue thinking that. “How did you learn about it?” he asked instead, attending to his own clothes.

“I overheard some people talking,” Erik replied vaguely.

Lapis knew what that meant. “You were eavesdropping,” he translated. “If you eavesdrop, you might learn things you don’t like.”

“That’s never happened,” Erik asserted, shrugging on his jacket. “I want to know _everything_.” Lapis would have rolled his eyes, but by now he understood how true this statement was. “I still want to bug all the offices, but Grace says that would be wrong.”

“Agreed,” Lapis supported swiftly, assessing Erik for his suitability to be seen in public.

“Has Grace ever won?” Erik asked curiously, as if just now appreciating that she might be a good candidate.

“Three times,” Lapis assured him, wondering if he ought to encourage further conversation about the topic.

“Oh, people can win more than once?” Erik seemed disappointed by this. “I thought I was mean to enough people they wouldn’t need to repeat.”

Lapis smirked a bit as they went back to Erik’s office. “It’s not about _you_ , darling,” he remarked to the other man. “It’s about _them_ and how effective they are in response.” Lapis was actually consulted about who he thought should win each year, and had what he considered some insightful and unique criteria; but he decided Erik did not need to know this.

“You should have a lifetime achievement award,” Erik judged, and Lapis gave him a genuine smile, as this was meant as a compliment.

“Thank you. Shall I send Grace in?” He picked up his agenda, off to take care of his own tasks.

“No.” Erik took his hand and pulled him back to the desk he was sitting on, hands wrinkling the shirt Lapis had been so careful with. “You have to put up with me for two more minutes,” he announced, leaning in for a kiss.

Lapis stopped him, though. “I don’t think about it that way,” he promised Erik, not wanting his feelings to be hurt.

Of course, he needn’t have bothered. “I don’t really care how you think about it,” Erik replied. Then he stopped himself. “Unless you’d rather go.”

“No.” Lapis laid a soft kiss on Erik’s lips, which swiftly turned bolder. “I don’t want to go,” he murmured in his ear, as Erik nuzzled his neck. Just the fact that Erik would _allow_ him to say no—a slave!—when he’d been taught his whole life that would never happen, was enough to make him melt into the other man’s arms, agenda forgotten.

But Erik never forgot, and he set Lapis back after a moment. At least his smirk acknowledged the situation they were in. “Two minutes are up,” he stated. “Send Grace in on your way out.”

“Right,” Lapis agreed, only slightly distracted now. “Um, I’ll see you later.”

“Lifetime achievement!” Erik reminded him as he opened the door, leading to a bemused look from Grace. Lapis cringed slightly as he heard Erik’s next words to her: “So, a three-time champion. Are you allowed to win again? I could help…”

~*~*~*~*~*~

A crowd of people usually knotted around Erik wherever he went, all angling for his attention. Over the years Lapis had learned who he should defer to and who he could cut in front of, the primary goal of everyone being to catch Erik at just the right moment, to gain his approval and get their name on his agenda. When Lapis saw his chance he took it, sliding the blank card onto Erik’s notebook.

“Can you sign this?” he asked.

Erik always looked before doing so, a wise precaution. “What is it?” he asked suspiciously, flipping the card over to its garish cover. The group rounded a corner in the company’s headquarters and Lapis trotted to keep up.

“It’s a birthday card, for Frank,” Lapis explained. Just one of the little domestic duties he handled.

“Frank who?” Erik resisted, not seeing the point of birthday cards.

“Your son, Frank,” Lapis was forced to clarify. Erik was not embarrassed by that sort of lapse, so Lapis supposed he shouldn’t be either.

“Oh.” With that acceptance, Erik scribbled on the card and Lapis retrieved it.

“You could have signed it ‘Dad,’” he noted dryly, seeing Erik’s full name scrawled there.

Someone else had already superseded him in Erik’s attention, but the man could multitask. “You didn’t tell me to write ‘Dad,’” he pointed out, leafing through the new document he’d been given. “You just said to sign it.” He crossed something out, with prejudice, and gave it back to the supplicant with a glare.

The group was about to get on the elevator, but Lapis was not, having other tasks to accomplish on his own. Erik grabbed the door to prevent it from closing between them. “Are you going to write a note?” he demanded of Lapis.

The slave knew better than to hope there was any sentiment behind this question. “Yes.” He usually did.

“Nothing legally binding!” Erik warned, and let the doors shut.

“It’s a birthday card!” Lapis reminded him with exasperation, loud enough to be heard, he hoped. But volume was not really the problem here. Shaking his head Lapis went off to compose the birthday note to Frank from his father.

~*~*~*~*~*~

_~*~*~ Lapis@29 ~*~*~_

Erik was having an intense conversation with his team about screen resolution, which had reached the frustrating deadlocked stage when he declared it was obviously complete garbage but no one else had any idea what the h—l he was talking about. Lapis was allegedly reading a book off to the side, the headphones of his cassette player clamped over his ears; but in reality the music was off and he was trying to think of a way to disrupt the unpleasant pattern before him, without Erik catching on.

At that moment Connie, the secretary at the nearest desk, slipped into the room and approached Lapis. “Lisa’s on the phone,” she told him discreetly.

Normally her going to Lapis first was good, and what he guided people to do; but in this case, it provided the perfect distraction for Erik. Removing his headphones (Erik thought they were ugly, and had vowed to design better ones), the slave stood and caught Erik’s eye. “Excuse me, Erik,” he said politely, “but there’s a phone call for you.”

Erik narrowed his eyes. “The phone call routine again?” he accused peevishly.

“It’s Lisa,” Lapis clarified. “Shall I just take it?” Maybe that would actually be better, in Erik’s current mood.

“No,” he denied shortly. “Fix this!” he added to his team, gesturing vaguely to the screen that he claimed was ‘grainy,’ and stalked out of the room, Lapis hurrying after him.

Connie handed Erik her phone and stepped away out of sight before Erik could tell her to get lost. “Lisa? Hey. What’s wrong?” Erik asked flatly into the phone. It was 9 AM on a school day.

“ _Hi_ ,” Lisa began, with maddening uncertainty.

“Hi,” Erik repeated, with fake brightness, obviously impatient.

“ _Can you come get me?_ ” Lisa asked, hesitantly, and Lapis saw Erik’s attention shift on its axis.

“Yes, I can,” he assured her immediately. “Where are you?”

“ _I’m at home_ ,” she told him.

“At your mom’s house?” Erik clarified. “Okay, Lapis is coming over right now to pick you up. Go,” he mouthed to the slave, who sped out the door. “Are you okay?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Lisa agreed half-heartedly.

“Where’s your mom?”

“ _I don’t know_ ,” Lisa admitted, and Erik finally saw the crux of the matter.

“When did you last see her?” he asked calmly, tucking his outrage at Katherine away in its own (overstuffed) box for the moment. In recent years Lisa had gotten her own box in his mind, as she became interesting enough to be an individual instead of an appendage of her wayward mother.

“ _She went out with some friends last night_ ,” Lisa described, and Erik rolled his eyes. “ _And she wasn’t back when I woke up. I should’ve gone to school_ ,” she second-guessed.

“No, don’t worry about school, I’m going to call you out sick for today,” Erik planned. “What I want you to do is pack your suitcase, you’re going to stay with us for a few days. Okay?”

“ _Okay_ ,” Lisa agreed with a sigh. It was a sigh of resignation, Erik felt; she couldn’t have been surprised by his instructions, and had doubtless weighed them against calling him. Erik was glad she had called anyway, especially knowing the fuss Katherine was going to kick up.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” he checked.

“ _Yes_ ,” she replied, with reassuring impatience. At thirteen she did far more caretaking of her mother than Erik thought wise, but this did at least mean she was able to take care of _herself_.

“Just stay inside with the door locked, don’t let anyone in until Lapis gets there,” he advised anyway.

“ _Are you going to look for Mom?_ ” Lisa wanted to know.

“Yes, I am,” Erik promised, trying not to make this sound too threatening. Although now that he’d said that, he realized he didn’t care too much about what had happened to Katherine, as long as he had Lisa in his possession. “Do you want me to stay on the phone with you until Lapis arrives?”

“ _No_ ,” she claimed.

“Are you sure? I don’t mind.”

“ _You’re probably busy_ ,” Lisa suggested.

“Not really, my team is comprised of idiots who can’t tell that the screen resolution is grainy,” Erik groused.

“ _Well who hired them?_ ” Lisa sassed back.

“Grace, I think,” Erik blamed. “People are going to be staring at these screens for eight hours a day, that’s the office of the future,” he insisted. “The resolution can’t be grainy, that will lead to eye strain and fatigue, and thus decreased productivity—“

“ _Dad_ ,” Lisa interrupted.

“Yes?”

“ _I have to go pack_.”

“Okay,” he agreed. “Just stay there until Lapis comes, okay?”

“ _Okay, I will_.”

They hung up, and Erik tried to remember how to call her out sick from school, which he didn’t normally deal with personally. Though since he’d donated a new building to them, someone would probably walk him through the process happily. Then he ought to call the lawyer and let him know what the latest in the saga was—sounded like Lisa would be spending a nice long time with Erik and Lapis.

**

Steve pulled the car into the driveway of Katherine’s house and Lapis hurried up to the front door. He didn’t know quite what was going on, but he was more than happy to pick Lisa up and spend some extra time with her. Erik hadn’t called him in the car, so he’d been running through various scenarios in his head, if Lisa was sick or had had an argument with her mother, perhaps. The latter could get ugly, and he had warned Steve to keep an eye out.

Lapis knocked and after a long moment saw Lisa peek out from behind a curtain at the front window. He turned to face her and waved, trying to be cheerful. Then she unlocked the door for him and gave him a hug.

“Hi, Sunshine,” he greeted. “How are you?”

“I’m okay,” she replied in a reasonably upbeat tone, letting him in.

Her suitcase and bookbag were waiting by the couch in the living room, but he didn’t see Katherine. “So what’s going on?” he was forced to ask.

“Oh, Mom didn’t come home last night, after going out with her friends,” Lisa explained. She sounded very blasé about this now. “I should’ve just gone to school. But, I was worried, so I called Dad, and he said I should come stay with you for a few days.” This was said in a chipper tone of voice, but then her expression took a rapid downturn. “Mom is going to be so mad!”

That was exactly what Lapis was thinking. Assuming nothing unfortunate had befallen Katherine—which of course he hoped it hadn’t—she was going to be _very_ upset when she finally made it home, and realized Erik had used her absence to make off with Lisa, and she would have to come to him as a supplicant yet again to get her back. Lapis felt neither of them behaved in a mature, healthy way at these times, but he couldn’t help but take Erik’s side—a thirteen-year-old girl should not find herself unexpectedly home alone all night, with no word from her mother.

Anxiety about Katherine returning home any moment spurred him to action. “Okay, well, let’s get going,” he suggested. “You have everything? Did you leave a note for your mom?”

Lisa shook her head. “I didn’t know what to say,” she admitted.

“You take your things out to the car,” Lapis encouraged, “and I’ll leave her a note.” He shooed Lisa out the door and saw Steve get out of the car to help, then ducked back into the dim house.

Lapis ripped a scrap of paper from the pad by the phone, pen hesitating over the surface. _Lisa will be staying with Erik for the next few days_ , he finally wrote, adding today’s date. Short and factual. He signed the note and left it in what he hoped was a prominent place, then did a quick check that the lights were off and carefully locked the door behind him. Erik would have dictated a longer and more vindictive note; but it would probably find its way into some lawyer’s folder, and Lapis didn’t want to overreach his instructions.

He jumped into the back seat of the car with Lisa. “Okay, let’s get on the road,” he told Steve, trying to sound calmer than he felt. Why did it so often seem like he was escaping with Lisa from Katherine’s clutches? That was surely an unfair characterization. Though, to be honest, he had stopped trying so hard to think fairly about her, after she had slapped him a few years ago.

“I’m just going to call your dad real quick,” Lapis said, dialing the car phone. After a few transfers around the building—the boss was tracked closely, but often made unpredictable changes in his route—Erik picked up.

“ _Did you get her?_ ” he wanted to know.

“Yes, safe and sound,” Lapis assured him. “I left a note. We’re on our way home now.”

“ _No, bring her to the office_ ,” Erik reversed.

“Really?” Lapis checked, momentarily thrown.

Erik’s tone became very precise. “ _Yes,_ really.” Lapis assumed the screen resolution issue had not yet been solved.

“Sure, of course,” he promised Erik. If they went to the office, maybe Erik would spend a little more time with her. “We’ll be there soon. Actually we’re going to the office, Steve,” Lapis told the driver after hanging up.

“The office?” Lisa repeated. Lapis couldn’t quite tell how she felt about this—at one age it was cool to be the boss’s daughter, at another fatally embarrassing, and Lisa was right at the transition.

“Yeah, we can see the new things people are working on,” Lapis suggested brightly, “and the new cafeteria serves pizza!” He wondered if she ever got tired of him being the cheerleader, but when he put his arm around her she leaned into him readily. “Tell me what you’ve been up to lately! How did your math test go?”

~*~*~*~*~*~

The room was dark, and Lapis didn’t really have to pay attention. Plus he was on the couch off to the side, not at the conference table with the others, and Erik wouldn’t care if he took a nap. It was so tempting sometimes. But he liked to show that he was alert and involved, and this was the ‘blue skies’ meeting, when the team leads presented big projects for Erik’s continued approval. Those were often very interesting, more so than the financial reports for example.

Jo White was talking about robots and machine-learning algorithms to improve robot-human interactions. It was hard to tell if Erik was really listening; he was typing away on his tablet screen, on what looked to Lapis like the slides from Jo’s presentation, but his notes could have been totally unrelated.

“…one key way to improve interactions is to build what we’re calling an empathy module,” Jo explained. “The program will learn to understand how someone feels and react appropriately—“

“What?” asked Erik abruptly from the head of the table.

Jo prudently backed up a bit. “We think we can teach the computer to recognize the user’s emotional state and suggest an appropriate response—“

“How?” Erik interrupted again, sounding utterly mystified. Lapis was somehow not surprised he was having trouble with this concept.

“Well, we’ll teach it the same way humans learn what other people are feeling,” Jo proposed. “Facial expressions, vocal modulation, situational context—“

“What are you talking about?” Erik persisted, as if she had lapsed into Russian for the third time and he was getting impatient with it. Others in the room shifted uncomfortably, fearing an impending confrontation, as Jo became equally frustrated.

Lapis dared to intervene. “Jo, could you skip ahead a couple slides, please?” he asked politely, seeing what was on his own copy. Most of the team leads in the room he had known for years, so he hoped he didn’t seem _too_ out of line.

Erik did not object to this. “Sure,” Jo agreed, moving ahead.

“That one,” Lapis specified. The screen was now full of images of someone making different faces, each labeled with an emotion.

“This is what we use to teach the software about facial expressions,” Jo told them. “It analyzes twenty-three features of each expression, like lip shape and eyebrow position, and learns to associate them with a specific emotion, then it can identify those features on other people—“

“Jo, this makes zero sense,” Erik cut in sharply. “All those pictures look alike to me.”

Slowly everyone in the room turned to stare at Erik, not that this bothered him. Lapis thought the expressions were actually rather exaggerated himself, but it proved what he’d suspected.

“Anger, fear, happiness…” Jo read off helplessly, pointing to some of the disparate labeled photos.

“Maybe _slightly_ different,” Erik allowed. “It’s very subtle. It doesn’t seem like an efficient system to me.”

No one knew quite what to say to that, the room awkwardly silent. Lapis took another chance and piped up. “Well, now we know what the problem is,” he said cheerfully. “You don’t have an empathy module!”

He thought this broke the tension, as several people snickering and murmured. Erik merely pinned him with a look, however. “ _Is_ that a problem?” he asked. “I’m a billionaire. I’m the head of the world’s largest computing company. I don’t think it’s a problem.” He sounded mildly exasperated. “Next topic,” he decreed, turning back to the screen.

Lapis made a chiding noise; he was on thin ice now, but he didn’t want Jo to feel like he’d torpedoed her project with a glib remark. It was hard to know what would turn Erik off a project sometimes.

“No,” Erik reiterated to him. “I want my robots to do useful things, like clean and drive cars and deliver packages. They don’t need to know how people feel to do that. Next topic!” He didn’t seem angry, merely his usual level of dismissive with an idea he didn’t get, and Jo ceded the spotlight to Sanye and his idea for virtual currency.

After the presentations and discussions had finished, those whose projects had been approved left the room quickly, eager to get back and tell their teams; those who had been denied dragged their feet, some crowding around Erik to try and change his mind. Every once in a while this worked, which just encouraged them to keep trying. Erik strode purposefully down the hall towards the elevator, confident that the knot of people around him would get out of his way no matter which direction he turned.

“No, no, no, no,” he repeated, indicating each person in turn. “Maybe,” he added to the last one, which was like the Golden Ticket. The elevator doors opened. “You. Come here.” This was directed at Lapis, who lurked at the back of the crowd, hoping to remain unnoticed. “Take the next car,” Erik added, pulling Lapis into the elevator and leaving everyone else behind.

The car started to move, and Erik gave the slave an unimpressed look. “I don’t have an empathy module?” he repeated acidly.

“I know, I spoke out of turn,” Lapis said regretfully, without apologizing for the actual remark. “I’ll be quiet in the future.”

Erik saw through this ploy, however. “I understand perfectly well what other people are feeling,” he claimed.

“Mmm,” Lapis responded, unwilling to agree but also unwilling to get into more trouble.

“ _Important_ people,” Erik qualified. “Not _unimportant_ people.” Which was almost everyone.

Lapis saw his opportunity to redirect the conversation and took it, scooting close enough to toy with Erik’s jacket. “Am _I_ an important person?” he asked with a coy smile.

“Yes,” Erik agreed, and Lapis blossomed into a genuine grin. “See, I can tell that makes you happy,” Erik remarked dryly.

“What gave it away?” Lapis said flirtatious, stretching up for a kiss. Instead Erik hit the ‘stop’ button on the elevator, which gave them a jolt.

“Erik, you can’t stop the elevator!” Lapis protested, perhaps unwisely. “People will think we’re _doing something_ on it!” Again.

“That’s why Grace had the window put in,” Erik claimed, “so we couldn’t keep doing things.” The elevator now looked out over the interior courtyard of the company headquarters—and more importantly, people could look _in_. “Why should robots care how people feel?” he asked Lapis, in a challenging way.

Somehow the slave suspected the future of this project was resting on his answer, which seemed a little unfair but not surprising, given Erik’s mercurial nature. “Did you read Jo’s report?” he checked first.

“No. Why would I?”

Lapis liked reading the reports, fortunately. “Well, don’t think about a robot, like an android,” he suggested. “Think about just a computer program, like a search engine, or something that controls things in your house, like the lights. If it understands what people are feeling, then it better understands what they want it to do.” Erik narrowed his eyes, which at least meant he was still listening. “Then things are more efficient, because you don’t have to keep repeating your commands, or use the exact right terms to find what you want. It’s more intuitive for more people.”

Erik blinked at him. “Why didn’t Jo just say that?” he demanded, starting the elevator again.

“I think she assumed people would know why emotions are important,” Lapis replied dryly.

“Well _that_ was dumb.”

The elevator let them out on a floor where several of the design teams worked, whether coincidentally or on purpose Lapis wasn’t sure, and Erik strode down the hall towards Jo’s workshop, Lapis trotting along behind him. Erik burst into the room just as, presumably, Jo was letting her team know the bad news.

“You guys are on,” Erik announced, much to their surprise. “Make a program that intuitively understand what I want.” The team, still in shock at this reversal, did not exactly start cheering at this dictum—it was hard enough for a _human_ to understand what Erik wanted most of the time. “It’s voice-activated, right? How are you going to handle accents? What about kids? They’re impossible to understand. We could put it in toys for Q4.” Lapis, who had been smiling in the background up to this point, now looked alarmed, as did Jo’s team.

“It won’t be ready by then,” she said quickly. “We’re only at the initial stages—“

Erik rolled his eyes dismissively. “Little furry robot pets that kids can talk to,” he specified, which Lapis did not think was at all what Jo had had in mind. “Work on it!” With that he walked off, heedless of the chaos he was leaving behind, per usual.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Lapis was laying out his clothes for the day when Erik stopped him. “Stay home today,” he ordered.

Lapis paused, trying to remember if there was anything happening today to prompt this. “Why?” he asked curiously, when nothing came to mind.

“Just stay home,” Erik repeated mysteriously, back to his own dressing in full confidence that his command would be obeyed. “In your room, in fact.”

Well, at least he could stay in his pajamas longer, Lapis thought, hanging his trousers back up. “All day I should stay in my room?” he checked.

“Well, you can use the bathroom, of course,” Erik allowed. “Have food brought to you. Just relax. You have plenty to do in your room.”

This was true. Lapis’s room was well-equipped with books, streaming media, and art supplies, so spending the day confined to it was no hardship. In fact it seemed guiltily indulgent. _Suspiciously_ indulgent.

“Are you going to tell me why?” Lapis persisted, straightening Erik’s tie for him.

“No.”

Lapis rolled his eyes. “May I send emails?” he checked. He did have some things he usually took care of at work.

“Yes,” Erik allowed. “But make sure you’re available in the early afternoon.” The plot thickened. Erik frowned at his image in the mirror. “Why am I wearing a tie?” he demanded.

Lapis was tempted to refuse to tell him, as payback for his own coyness, but Erik would merely remove the tie. “You have a meeting first thing with the FCC,” Lapis reminded him. “Grace thought you should wear a tie.”

Erik made a face but left the item in place. “Go to your room,” he encouraged Lapis, seemingly eager to confine him now.

“Okay, okay!” Lapis picked up his book and his tablet, his bottle of water, his sketchpad—Erik sighed heavily. “You could help carry things,” Lapis suggested mildly, so Erik took the tablet, snooping through his browsing history as they walked to Lapis’s room. His in-season clothes were in Erik’s room, and that was where he normally slept; but he spent a good deal of time in his own room as well.

“Okay?” Lapis asked, arranging his things on the bed.

“Are you going back to sleep?” Erik inquired.

“Maybe.” His day having been interrupted, Lapis was not quite sure what to do with himself. “What about exercising?”

Erik had apparently not thought of this. He did like the slave to stay fit. “Do it during my FCC meeting,” he instructed. “But be back here by ten AM!”

Lapis sighed—so much for going back to bed, then.

**

“So are we ready?” Erik asked his assembled team. Well, they better be, he was calling now.

“ _Hello_ ,” Lapis answered. “ _How’s your day?_ ”

“Great,” Erik told him flatly. “Yours?”

“ _Well, pretty quiet, considering I’m confined_ —“

“I’m gonna put you on speakerphone,” Erik interrupted, doing so. “What were you saying?” He tapped at his computer screen.

“ _I said my day’s been pretty quiet_ ,” Lapis repeated, now to the room at large. “ _I’ve been binge-watching reruns of_ Dallas _, really reminds me of you_.”

Erik laughed at this; several of his employees made eye contact around the table, wondering if they were allowed to laugh as well. In the end no one dared.

“ _Are you playing with the home automation system?_ ” Lapis questioned suddenly.

“Why do you ask?” Erik replied innocently.

Lapis huffed. “ _Because the air and ceiling fan just came on, and it’s getting bloody cold in here now. Can you stop?_ ”

Erik smirked at his tone. “Get in bed,” he suggested. “I see you have the blinds down.”

“ _Yes, I_ —“ With a flick of the controls Erik sent the blinds rolling up. “ _Oh, I can see why you like this_ ,” Lapis announced knowingly. “ _But what if I was changing or something?_ ”

Erik grimaced. “That’s a good point. We should probably have some kind of override.”

“Like maybe a lock the person at home can engage?” suggested Shari.

“It’s not really an emergency thing, raising the blinds,” agreed Bob.

“ _Oh, are you in a meeting?_ ” Lapis realized, his tone immediately becoming much more deferential. Normally he did not speak to Erik that way in front of others.

Not that Erik cared. “Yes, it’s the home automation team,” he confirmed. “We’re doing a demo… Oh, I should have mentioned that.” Well, he couldn’t remember _everything_.

“ _Mmm_ ,” Lapis replied, which meant, ‘Yes, you bloody well should have.’

“Let’s try the sound system,” Erik decided, swirling through the options on the screen. Dean Martin’s ‘Ain’t That a Kick in the Head’ abruptly blared, tinny, over the phone.

“ _Oh, that’s_ —“ Erik smirked, picturing Lapis’s expression as he tried to remain civil. “ _That’s really amazing!_ ” he finally said, shouting a little to be heard over the music. “ _That you can control it from all the way downtown! But what if the baby was down for a nap?_ ”

Erik cut the music with a frown. “We don’t have a baby,” he pointed out.

“ _Yes, but other people do_.”

“A general system override, maybe,” Shari suggested.

“Like a security system,” Bob described. “If one person’s at home, _they_ want to control things—not the person in a remote location.”

“But that’s the _point_ ,” Erik argued. “You can be away from home, and _still_ control things.” No one had to ask why this appealed to him. “Say you’re fourteen—“

“ _Me?_ ” Lapis checked.

“Yes.” Erik brought up some new menus and perused them. “You’re fourteen and you’re home alone, and you decide to watch _Horny Housewives of Hollywood_.” He flicked the movie onto the TV in Lapis’s bedroom.

“ _Excuse me?!_ ” the younger man sputtered.

“You think I’ll never find out,” Erik went on, amused at his little scenario, “but I decide to check in, and I can see you’re watching it. Tsk, tsk.” He glanced around the room. “This happens to people, right? I have teenagers, I know it happens.”

Lapis seemed personally affronted by this idea. “ _I can assure you, none of the children have ever_ —“

“So I see you’re watching _Horny Housewives of Hollywood_ ,” Erik interrupted, “and I can just switch it over to _Dora the Explorer_.” He paused after doing so. “That’s not also pornography, is it?” he checked.

“ _It’s not_ ,” Lapis assured him. “ _But was my telly supposed to change at some point?_ ”

Erik frowned. “It never did? What’s it on?”

“ _Nothing. It’s off_ ,” Lapis told him. “ _I turned it off when you called_.”

Erik flicked the porn back on. “Is it working now?”

“ _No, still off_.”

Erik lifted his head and gazed around the room, giving his team a very unimpressed look. Immediately they sprang into action, throwing out ideas and tapping at their own tablets as well as Erik’s.

“Guys, come on,” he needled. “What is it? Hardware? Software? A bug? A connection?”

“It might be the cable is hooked up to the wrong TV,” Shari suggested.

“Joe!” Erik snapped. “You made all the connections yourself! What is this?”

Joe looked chagrined. “Well, we wired several TVs, I guess a cable could’ve gotten mixed up—“

“Oh, for the love of—“ Erik broke off with a growl. “We are building the home automation system of the future, people! We cannot get _cables_ mixed up! Lapis!”

“ _Yes?_ ”

“Go around the house, find the TV I’m controlling,” Erik ordered. “It’s still playing _Horny Housewives of Hollywood_.”

“ _You just like saying that, don’t you?_ ” Lapis asked with amusement.

It was good _someone_ was still amused, because Erik no longer was. His team tossed ideas back and forth, toggled settings, went on about routers and nodes, but nothing fundamental seemed to change. Erik become very impatient with such amateurish delays.

“ _Erik?_ ” Lapis finally said, and Erik snapped his fingers, silencing everyone in the room.

“Yes?” he asked into the phone.

“ _I found the telly playing, um,_ Horny Housewives of Hollywood,” Lapis announced, stumbling over the title as he tried not to laugh. “ _It’s Dolores’s, in the kitchen_.” Erik considered that for a beat, then tapped his screen. “ _It’s shut off now_ ,” Lapis described cheerfully. “ _She was watching her telenovela when it suddenly just went crazy!_ ”

The room stayed deathly silent. Erik ignored many social nuances, but even he understood the importance of not ticking off the person who prepared his meals. “Tell Dolores that was Joe’s fault,” he directed swiftly, “and we’re never inviting him to dinner again.”

“ _Right_ ,” Lapis agreed, now laughing outright.

Erik was quick to move on from this failure, however. “Since you’re in the kitchen,” he continued, calling up a new menu on his computer, “let’s try the soda machine.”

“ _And why exactly does a soda machine need to be operated remotely?_ ” Lapis inquired.

“Because it can be,” Erik replied, thinking this obvious. “What do you want? How about orange?”

“ _Diet orange, please_ ,” Lapis corrected, and Erik rolled his eyes but changed the selection.

“Fine. This also allows me to keep tabs on how much soda you’re drinking, in case I care about that—“

He broke off as Lapis was making noise. “ _Can you—Shut it off!_ ”

Erik did so. “What’s wrong now?” There was only one soda machine.

“ _S—t_ ,” Lapis sighed. “ _No, I’ll get it, it’s alright_ —“

“What’s going on?” Erik demanded.

“ _It spilled all over the floor_ ,” Lapis admitted. “ _I thought a cup would come down first? So I didn’t put one under the spout_ —“

Erik rubbed the bridge of his nose. “A cup _doesn’t_ come down first?” he snapped at his team. “How can it be operated remotely if it doesn’t dispense a _cup_ first? If someone has to _be there_ to put a cup down—“

“I never thought of that,” conceded Shari.

“We’d need some kind of built-in cup storage,” mused Bob. “We’ll have to contact the manufacturer—“

“Let’s leave the kitchen,” Erik decided prudently. “Lapis!”

“I’m still cleaning up the soda—“

“Leave it!” Erik insisted. “Someone else will do it. Go out the back door.”

“Are you going to turn on the sprinklers?” Lapis guessed, which Erik had been saving as a surprise.

“Only a few! Now go stand in the middle of the lawn…”

~*~*~*~*~*~

_~*~*~ Lapis@36 ~*~*~_

Kayla, Erik’s secretary, was on the phone when Lapis entered the outer office. As this was a frequent occurrence, he didn’t pay much attention as he breezed on past. “And that’s Melissa… how do you spell that? H-A-G-O-P-I-A-N—“

Lapis dashed back to her desk. “Don’t hang up!” he interrupted.

“Oh, just a second,” Kayla said quickly into the phone, handing it to Lapis at his gesture.

“Hi, Melissa?” he said in his brightest tone. “It’s Lapis, Erik’s slave. I don’t know if you remember me?”

There was a pause as she adjusted to this change. “ _Sure, I remember you, Lapis_ ,” she replied. “ _How are you doing?_ ” Her tone was, he felt, slightly wary, or weary.

“I’m doing great,” he promised. “How are you? What have you been up to? We haven’t heard from you for a while.”

“ _I went back to Ohio_ ,” she informed him. “ _I’ve been doing IT for a university_ —“ Erik stuck his head out of his office to summon Lapis, who responded with a vague gesture that meant, ‘This is nothing, go away, I’ll be there soon.’ Erik rolled his eyes and went back to his office.

“Really?” Lapis replied to Melissa in a tone of interest, perhaps _too_ interested for what she’d actually said. “Well, I know Erik would love to say hi to you, but he’s in a meeting right now. If I could get your number he could call sometime—“ After he had been thoroughly coached on what, and what not, to say.

“ _Actually_ ”—and now Melissa’s tone was definitely dry—“ _I was calling to say that I was going to be in town on Friday, and I hoped to drop by and say hi to Erik in person_.”

“Our town?” Lapis stuttered slightly, mind racing with the possibilities. “This Friday?” Helpfully Kayla showed him her computer screen with Erik’s packed schedule.

“ _Yes_ ,” Melissa confirmed. “ _Do you think he’ll have time for me?_ ”

“Absolutely,” Lapis promised, quickly calculating which meeting could be axed. “How about around 1pm, after lunch?” he suggested. “Would that work for you?”

“ _One PM on Friday_ ,” Melisa repeated. “ _I’ll see you then_.”

“Yeah, I’m looking forward to it,” Lapis claimed. He hung up and let out a long breath.

“Who was that?” Kayla wanted to know. Erik’s schedule did not get rearranged for just anyone.

“Early team member, coming in to say hi,” Lapis told her, trying to sound pleased about this. “Put her down for 1pm on Friday. Tell Sales their meeting will start at 2pm instead.”

Kayla did not think this was a good idea. “Those meetings always take two hours,” she pointed out.

“Well, this week they’ll get it done in one,” Lapis directed. Then the _rest_ of the schedule would stay intact, at least.

Leaving Kayla to her duties Lapis went into Erik’s office, where he had turned to tormenting Grace per usual. He was technically ‘in a meeting’ but without Lapis’s input they couldn’t start, and Erik did not wait quietly.

“A million units, Grace,” he was saying. “You promised me a million units a month!”

“Not every month, continuously!” she insisted, frustrated by his constant return to this topic even though he understood perfectly well what she’d meant. “If we sold a million units a month, we would run out of customers, as every person on Earth would own one!”

“There’s six billion people on the planet, Grace,” Erik pointed out. “They wouldn’t _all_ own one for six thousand months, which is _five hundred years_.” He had meant to be humorous, but now his eyes widened in alarm. “Oh my G-d, a million units a month is _nothing_ ,” he realized with horror. “That’s a drop in the bucket of our potential customer base! We need to ramp up marketing and production—“

“Could I interrupt?” Lapis asked.

“Please,” responded Grace.

He had been glancing around the large office as they spoke, but this was a case when it paid to be extra careful. “Is it just the three of us in here?” he asked.

Immediately Grace straightened up. “Yes. What is it?”

“I just got off the phone with Melissa Hagopian,” he revealed, waiting to see what memories this triggered.

Grace knew right away why he was concerned. “What did she say?” she asked urgently.

“Melissa,” Erik repeated speculatively, like he was still searching his databanks.

“She said she would be in town Friday, and she wanted to come by and ‘say hi’ to Erik,” Lapis told Grace.

“Say hi?” Grace repeated. “What does that mean? How did she sound?”

“Kind of serious,” Lapis tried to describe. “Tired? Resigned? I don’t want to read too much into it—“

“Ovals and rounded corners!” Erik interrupted suddenly, drawing their attention. “Melissa?” he added, as if _they_ were the ones who had forgotten. “She must love _that_ guy,” he added with pleasure, nodding at their recently-released home computer. “Although probably not the colors, she preferred things black and white. What’s Melissa been up to all these years?”

“Uh, she said she’d been in Ohio, university IT,” Lapis relayed quickly. “I gave her 1pm on Friday—“

“G-d, that sounds horrible,” Erik sympathized. “So she mostly deals with morons who are afraid of computers, right? Did I have a hole on Friday?” he asked of his schedule, frowning.

“I _made_ a hole,” Lapis assured him. “Sales will have to be two to three,” he added to Grace, who was scribbling a note.

“Sales always takes two hours,” Erik protested. “Especially now, since they need to start selling at least ten times more. Couldn’t I just run through lunch with Melissa? Or meet her on a different day.”

Grace and Lapis made eye contact, and she ceded to him the responsibility of prompting Erik. “Melissa Hagopian,” he repeated. “Do you remember that you had sex with her at the company Christmas party once?”

Erik blinked at him. “Of course,” he said after a moment. Apparently that memory had been stored in a different box. “Yes, I remember, we were both drunk, and she smelled like cookies.” He frowned at Lapis. “Is _that_ why you shortened my meeting with Sales? She shouldn’t get special treatment just because we had sex once.”

“It’s been, what, fifteen years?” Grace asked.

“Yeah, about,” Lapis agreed. “I think it’d be too late for anything criminal, but—“

“A civil suit?” Grace worried.

“Why would Melissa sue me?” Erik wanted to know. “We both enjoyed ourselves. You know, I’m very conscientious about that—“

Grace did not want to hear more on that subject. “It wouldn’t have to be a formal complaint,” she suggested to Lapis. “If she just sold her story to a tabloid, or threatened to—“

“Why are you guys being so cynical?” Erik wanted to know, apparently truly amazed by the depths of their suspicion about their fellow humans. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Nowadays, that is very much a matter of opinion,” Lapis told him, and Erik rolled his eyes. “Still, fifteen years,” he repeated to Grace, more positively. “And I’ve never heard a whisper of it anywhere. It’d be news for a few days, but hardly shocking,” he assessed, which made Erik huff indignantly.

“Assuming she told the truth,” Grace countered darkly.

“What is wrong with you guys today?” Erik wanted to know, blissfully playing innocent. “Melissa is cool, Melissa is not coming here to blackmail me.” He seemed completely certain on this point. “She just wants to say hi, and hope some of the shine of having worked here once will rub off on her.” Which was a cynical enough motivation to assign her, really.

Lapis and Grace could not share his confidence, however. “I’ll check her employment records and see what I can find online,” Grace planned.

“Remember how she left only a few months after Christmas?” Lapis recalled, negative again. “Like two or three. She might claim a hostile work environment.”

“Should I involve a lawyer?” Grace worried.

“No,” Erik responded, as if this was absurd.

“Let’s not yet,” Lapis advised. “I’ll talk to Sales, make sure they don’t find the time change weird. We’ll go over some talking points, yeah?” Grace nodded.

“I don’t need _talking points_ for meeting one of my former employees!” Erik insisted with exasperation. “Well, not Melissa, anyway,” he amended. “Both of you calm down.”

The situation was potentially too serious for Grace and Lapis to appreciate the irony of Erik telling _them_ to calm down. “We’ll touch base at five,” Grace told the slave, before hurrying from the room.

“Weren’t we going to talk about—“ Erik shouted after her, but she was gone. “Do I not run my own f-----g company anymore?” he groused.

**

On Friday someone escorted Melissa from the front desk up to Erik’s office. Lapis had thought about meeting her himself, but ultimately he and Grace felt that might look like they were nervous and overcompensating. So instead Lapis met her only once she’d been delivered to Erik’s outer office.

“Melissa, hello, good to see you,” he greeted. He wasn’t overly warm; they really hadn’t interacted much, all those years ago. “How was your trip?” She looked older, but didn’t everyone.

“Fine, thank you, Lapis,” she replied. He assessed her as being slightly nervous. “The HQ’s changed a little since I was here last,” she understated.

“Oh yeah, we’ve really updated it,” Lapis enthused, glad for the neutral subject as they headed further into Erik’s sanctum. “We’re planning a whole new building soon.”

Erik rose from behind his desk as they entered, the picture of polite friendliness as he greeted Melissa and gave her a hug. Grace had decided to check in later, so it wouldn’t seem like they were ganging up on the visitor.

“Sit down. You want a drink?” Lapis fetched some water. “University IT, huh? What kind of computers do you use?”

“Old ones,” she responded with resignation, and Erik made commiserating noises. “The administration thought they were being progressive, bringing computers in ten years ago. They don’t seem to realize they need to keep _updating_ them.”

“G-d,” Erik sympathized. “Like they’re just a piece of furniture you can plonk down and forget about for the next fifty years. You know, our sales team—“ Lapis, who was sitting next to and slightly behind Erik, nudged his foot discreetly. Erik had been told not to offer any goods or services to Melissa, lest it be interpreted as a bribe. “But that’s not what we want to talk about,” Erik interrupted himself, with a slightly forced smile. “What brings you to town?”

“Well, I came to see you,” Melissa replied, with the air of beginning something important.

“You didn’t come all the way to California to see me,” Erik claimed, with false modesty. “Really? Are you thinking of moving back here?” He was also not supposed to offer her a job.

“Not really,” Melissa replied. “But I have something I need to tell you.” Lapis became very alert, while trying to still look casual, and Melissa glanced at him significantly.

Erik followed her gaze. “You can talk in front of Lapis,” he assured her.

Melissa took his word for that. “The last company Christmas party I was here for, do you remember what happened?” she asked carefully, and Lapis sat very still.

“Of course,” Erik promised frankly. “We had sex in the hallway. Which doesn’t exist anymore since the remodel,” he added, as that was obviously relevant in his mind. “Is that what you meant? It’s certainly the most memorable thing from the party that _I_ can recall.” He managed to say this matter-of-factly; it could have been interpreted as complimentary, Lapis felt, but by no means lecherous. Not that his testimony would count for anything, but still.

“Yeah, that’s what I meant,” Melissa agreed. “Not really the sort of thing I usually did.”

“Hey, me either!” Erik agreed, as if they’d just discovered something obscure but meaningful they had in common. “Well, we were kinda drunk. Not that drunk,” he added hastily. “But kinda.”

“I quit a couple months later,” Melissa went on. “Moved back to my parents in Ohio.”

“And we were sad to see you go,” Erik insisted. He pointed towards the computer on display. “Ovals and rounded corners, your favorite.” She smiled only thinly. “I hope us having sex in the now-nonexistent hallway didn’t contribute to your decision to leave,” he added seriously.

“It did, actually,” Melissa admitted. Lapis’s hands were clammy where he clutched his notebook; he hadn’t actually taken any notes yet, but needed _something_ in his hands. “I left because I was pregnant,” she finally said.

“Why?” Erik asked blankly. “We’ve always had a progressive maternity leave policy.”

Sometimes Lapis felt the urge to shake his master, just a little. “The baby was Erik’s,” he blurted instead, and Melissa nodded slowly.

Erik looked at him, then back at Melissa. “Wait, _what_?!” he exclaimed. Melissa sat stiffly; this was obviously the part she’d been dreading, his reaction. “From the—the _hallway_?” he continued in disbelief. “That doesn’t even _exist_ anymore?”

“Yes,” Melissa confirmed.

Erik leaned back in his chair, still stunned. “Wow. Really? Wow.” Lapis did not think this was very reassuring to Melissa. “Well why didn’t you tell me?” Erik demanded. “I have other kids, I take care of them perfectly well. Didn’t you work with Alana?”

Melissa’s expression was slightly skeptical. “ _Planned_ children, yes,” she agreed. “But the _unplanned_ one was very problematic.”

“Lisa,” Lapis hissed at Erik when he looked genuinely confused.

“That was settled years ago,” Erik dismissed, as if all the uncertainty he had put his daughter through was barely worth noting. “And, you’re not mentally unstable like Katherine. At least, I don’t think you are.”

“Thank you,” Melissa replied dryly. “But at the time, it did not seem like a good idea, to tell you. So I moved back to Ohio, to my parents—“

“Sorry, I gotta skip ahead a little,” Erik interrupted. “Do we actually have a kid? Like that you’re raising? Because if this story ends any other way—“

“Yes, we have a kid, that I’m raising,” Melissa confirmed, and Erik relaxed. “Obviously my parents were not entirely—“

“Boy or girl?” Erik wanted to know instead. “Name? Do you have pictures?” Lapis nudged his foot again, but Erik gave him a look. “Stop. She is not here to sue me, so I don’t have to be nice to her anymore.” He turned back to Melissa and rethought. “I didn’t mean that _exactly_ how it sounded,” he promised. “You aren’t here to sue me, are you?”

“No,” Melissa replied.

“So let’s skip over your single-parent angst, which you brought entirely on yourself with your unnecessary secrecy,” Erik directed, and Lapis heaved a sigh behind him, “and get to the part about my kid. How old is he or she now?”

Melissa, who had worked for Erik for some time, could not have been surprised at his attitude, but Lapis jumped in to smooth it over anyway. “We’re just so excited to find out about another child,” he translated in an upbeat tone, which was sincere. “The others have been such a joy over the years—“

“This one could have known them,” Erik needled, and Lapis poked him. Surely Melissa could at least see Erik was _glad_ to have another child, and that this was better than the alternative?

Well, maybe she could. She reached into her purse and took out some photos she’d brought along, for just this purpose. “This is Rachel,” she introduced, her tone growing fond. “She’s fifteen.” Erik studied the photos greedily, passing some to Lapis. “She’s very bright, she gets straight A’s. And she’s in track this year. In junior high she was in band for three years, but now that she’s in high school she wanted to try something different.”

“Holy s—t,” Erik finally commented, after a long moment of silence. “Do you see the resemblance?” he asked Lapis, who nodded immediately. “We’ll have to do a test of course, as a legal thing,” he told Melissa, “which is not meant as any kind of comment on your character.” He had learned the hard way that this didn’t go without saying. “Yeah, she really looks like my sister, though, doesn’t she?”

“She does,” Lapis agreed, seeing Emma’s face on the girl.

“I thought you were adopted,” Melissa pointed out in confusion.

“I meant my biological sister, I met her and our mother a few years ago,” Erik explained quickly. “Long story. Which is now relevant to you,” he realized. “But we can discuss that later. Did you bring her with you?”

“No,” Melissa answered firmly. “Well, I wasn’t sure how you’d react.”

“I’m really hurt by that,” Erik told her. “Because, I take good care of all of my children, I’m a responsible parent. I have contracts for all of them, they’ve never been deprived of anything.”

“A normal upbringing, away from the spotlight?” Melissa suggested, for contrast.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Erik claimed, still studying one of the photos. “There’s a big product launch in a couple weeks, all the kids will be there. She could debut at that.”

“No,” Melissa stated, with some exasperation. “My daughter is not going to _debut_ like she’s one of your new toys.”

“A personal computer is not a toy, it’s a revolution in education and productivity—“ Erik began indignantly, per usual missing the point.

“Excuse me,” Lapis interrupted politely. “I’m sure you’ve considered the reaction of the press to this,” he went on to Melissa. “I’m very impressed that it’s never gotten out.”

“Well, I never told anyone,” Melissa informed them, as if it was that easy.

Lapis had a lot of secrets to keep, and he knew it was _not_ that easy. “You never told a single person?” he checked. “That Erik was her father? That there _might_ be a connection?”

“Why would I admit to someone I got drunk and banged my boss in a hallway at the Christmas party?” Melissa replied bluntly.

Erik was not offended. “Is that a bad thing?” he asked, then corrected, “I’m told that’s a bad thing now.”

“We never told anyone, either,” Lapis assured her. “It’s just the three of us, plus Grace, who know it happened. So you can imagine how crazy the press is going to be,” he described to Melissa. “In our experience, it’s better for _us_ to control the story—make an official debut, give an interview, and then point everyone else to that. Otherwise they start showing up at your home,” he added regretfully.

For some reason this made Erik laugh. “Kid knows what he’s talking about,” he cracked proudly. “I’ve trained him well. Mostly as a negative example, I think.”

“Yes,” Lapis agreed dryly.

“Anyway, we can talk about her debut later,” Erik tabled. “What we need to do first is get a legal framework in place. Test of course, but then—“

A knock on the door interrupted him. “I think that’s Grace,” Lapis predicted, hurrying to check. It was, and he let her in and closed the door quickly behind her.

“Hi, Melissa, great to see you again,” Grace greeted.

“Stop being polite,” Erik commanded. “Come over here and see these pictures. A contract stipulating rights and responsibilities,” he went on to Melissa. “I’m sure you could use the money.”

“Actually we do fine,” Melissa replied coolly. “Ohio has a much lower cost of living.”

“Holy s—t!” Grace exclaimed as she grasped what was happening, and Erik grinned at her.

“I have a new kid!” he announced excitedly, which finally made Melissa smile a little. “Well, she’s not that new, she’s fifteen, but she’s new to _me_.”

“Oh my G-d—from the—that hallway isn’t even _there_ anymore!” Grace sputtered.

“Catch up, Grace,” Erik advised flippantly. “We’re way past that part. We need to change her name,” he continued to Melissa, who raised an eyebrow. “All my kids have my name. You can hyphenate if you want,” he allowed generously.

“Melissa, may I ask,” Lapis redirected, “why you decided to tell Erik about this now?”

From her expression her motives were complex and philosophical, which Erik was not interested in. “As she’s gotten older, Rachel has wanted to know more about her past,” she began thoughtfully. “Obviously, I thought about it for a long time, before I decided to—“

“Hagopian-Lehnsherr,” Erik said experimentally. “Hagopian-Lehnsherr sounds like a disease that you pick up in a foreign country, probably carried by mosquitos.” Obviously this was not a positive judgment. “Not sure a hyphen is going to be acceptable.”

“Welcome to the family,” Lapis added to Melissa, a bit helplessly.

**

Erik did not get stage fright, which was remarkable and fortunate. Though that did have negative side effects, such as being easily diverted from what he ought to be focusing on right before a major product launch.

“There he is!” Erik announced upon seeing Lapis hurtle past. “Come over here.”

Erik’s jollity, suspicious in itself, cooled quickly when Lapis tried to protest, so the slave sighed and joined him in the dressing room. Grace was there, looking more fluttery than usual, so Erik was probably in a snit about something. Well, Lapis was _busy_.

“Grace, Michael Burns from the _Chronicle_ was asking about the translation interface,” he warned her, glancing over his agenda for any other notes.

“I’ve told him to stop asking—“

“Look at him,” Erik interrupted, with a smirk that Lapis suspected was not complimentary. “How old are you now? Come on.”

Erik was clearly not going to let Lapis go before he was done playing with him. “Thirty-six,” Lapis replied perfunctorily, scribbling a reminder for himself.

“And how old were you when I got you?”

Erik, of everyone, did not forget figures, so this was a purely rhetorical exercise. “Eighteen.”

“Eighteen, huh?” Erik made a reasonable facsimile of fond nostalgia, which he was not prone to. “Remember when I got him, Grace?” he asked, refusing to let her leave. “Remember that skinny little kid who was afraid of his own shadow?”

“Yes, I’ve put on weight,” Lapis stated baldly. “So have you. Grace, do you have updated advance sales—“

“And now look at him.” Erik was not going to be dissuaded from whatever little point he wanted to make. “Telling people what to do. Giving quotes to _Rolling Stone_.”

“You _told_ me to do that,” Lapis reminded him quickly.

“Paying Lisa’s college tuition.”

Lapis looked up slowly, seeing that Erik’s grin had turned shark-like and cold. He glanced at Grace, who gave him an apologetic look and, quite correctly, vanished while Erik’s attention was elsewhere. Erik raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“Yes, I did do that,” Lapis admitted straightforwardly. Lying was the more dangerous option. Although this was always going to be treacherous to navigate—he just thought he’d have more time to formulate a strategy, before Erik found out.

“Why?” Erik asked curiously.

Lapis reminded himself that talking, persuading, was his strong point. “You were busy,” he tried, “and it needed to be paid, so—“

“I _wasn’t_ busy,” Erik countered sharply, “and I didn’t _want_ it to be paid!”

Which Lapis of course knew. “If the tuition wasn’t paid, she’d be kicked out of school—“

“That’s exactly why I didn’t want it paid!” Erik snapped. He launched himself from his chair, pacing around the confined space like a caged tiger.

Lapis set his agenda aside and leaned back against the counter, his posture aggressively casual. “I know you and Lisa are having a tiff right now—“

“Don’t call it a tiff. That’s a stupid word,” Erik judged. “Twelve-year-olds have tiffs.”

“Yes,” Lapis agreed, feeling his point had been made.

Erik rolled his eyes. “I’m very angry at her—“

“—a _tiff_ right now,” Lapis continued, “which is not serious enough to jeopardize her college career.” Erik had power, and he had moods, and sometimes the two did not mix well.

Narrowing his eyes, Erik struck from another angle. “How did you pay for it?” he wanted to know.

“I wrote a check,” Lapis deadpanned.

Erik snorted. “So right now, at Yale, there’s a check for _my_ daughter’s tuition, with _your_ name on it,” he surmised, as though this was a huge offense.

“If they even look at the name, I’m sure they’ll just think you delegated,” Lapis brushed off. These small concerns were merely a distraction from the real issue, which Erik would get to in his own time.

“How could you write a check for that amount?” Erik insisted. “How did you have that much money?”

“You give me money,” Lapis noted. Erik was at least not stingy in this respect. “And you also pay for things, so I don’t actually need to spend the money.”

“You saved up _that_ much?” Erik was not so much skeptical of Lapis’s honesty, as amazed at his frugality.

“Well, it _has_ been eighteen years,” Lapis responded with a faint smirk. Erik would get over this insult, this interference, after a little more venting and possibly a mild punishment, like having to deal with an unpleasant reporter.

“You should’ve invested it in something,” Erik criticized, and Lapis dared to drift closer.

“I _did_ ,” he claimed, straightening Erik’s collar. “I invested it in a bright young woman’s college education.”

Erik rolled his eyes but did not back away. “You know why I’m mad at her.”

“Yes.”

“She sold the house!” he complained anyway.

“ _Katherine_ sold the house,” Lapis corrected, as Erik growled and started to pace again. “After you put it in her name, knowing—“

“The money was supposed to go to Lisa!”

“Good G-d, Erik, why would _Katherine_ give money to Lisa?” Lapis asked pragmatically. “You are literally a billionaire. Though you wouldn’t know it to look at you,” he couldn’t help adding, in disapproval of Erik’s jeans and sneakers. Lapis was wearing a nice suit. “It was extremely predictable that Katherine would sell the house _and_ keep the money.” Lapis had said as much at the time, but he didn’t remind Erik of this. “ _Anyway_ ,” he pressed on, “it’s her you should be mad at, not Lisa.”

Here, Lapis was clearly wrong. “Lisa supported Katherine’s decision!” Erik reminded him. He did take perceived disloyalty rather hard.

“She was in a difficult position—“ Erik did not understand difficult positions, having never felt conflicted in his life. “You both _put her_ in a difficult position, demanding she choose sides—“

“It was not a hard choice!” Erik claimed.

“—choose sides over a house of insignificant value to you—“

“And she sold it for less than I paid!”

Lapis thought this was perhaps the most galling aspect to Erik, that Katherine had ignored his advice and made a poor business decision. The mere fact that he and Katherine had been antagonists for two decades made no difference, she still should’ve heeded his greater business sense.

“Do you remember what we’ve talking about,” Lapis began, after a long moment of silence, “about how your mind is divided into hundreds of little boxes, and other people’s aren’t—“

“Spare me the little boxes speech!” Erik said dismissively, so Lapis stopped. “When were you going to tell me about this?” he wanted to know.

Lapis collected his agenda, sensing Erik was winding down. “That I paid for Lisa’s tuition this semester? Never. I was _never_ going to tell you,” he admitted plainly.

Erik did not think this a sensible plan. “What did you think would happen, when Lisa was able to continue with school, when I hadn’t paid?”

“I honestly didn’t think you’d notice,” Lapis shrugged. Lisa’s college was on the East Coast; Erik was based on the West. He didn’t keep up with her on a daily basis and had a lot to occupy his mind, so with a little luck, Lapis figured he could get by until Erik finally sent the check himself, and the school applied it to _next_ semester. But apparently he was not that lucky. “How did you find out?”

“Grace let something slip about Lisa’s classes,” Erik explained, and Lapis nodded. Inevitable. Erik grinned suddenly, more real but still with too many teeth, and stalked towards Lapis. “You weren’t going to tell me you paid?” he repeated, backing the slave against the counter. “So you weren’t expecting to be paid back.”

Lapis laughed—of course Erik would think of that. “No, I wasn’t expecting to be paid back,” he agreed, tipping his head back to look at Erik, who had trapped him with an arm on either side. It was like being trapped by a panther, one whose training you were not entirely confident of.

Erik leaned down, lips just brushing his ear. “Good,” he stated. As if he had no intention of doing so.

Lapis suspected the funds would be replaced by the end of the day, but knew better than to say so. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Lehnsherr?” he asked instead, hand sliding over Erik’s ribs.

“Yes,” Erik decided significantly, and checked his watch. “Go lock the door.” Lapis smirked and slid out of Erik’s grasp, hurrying to obey. There _was_ one little ritual Erik liked to indulge in before a big presentation, which Lapis did not mind helping with at all.

**

Lapis hurried across the backstage area, his list of tasks having gotten hopelessly jumbled by his interlude with Erik, which was only what one had to expect sometimes. Erik trusted him with responsibilities, which was a rare and wonderful thing, but his _primary_ responsibility was always Erik himself.

He opened another door, to a relatively plush waiting room that had a nice spread of food and a small crowd of people milling about, cooling their heels before they could take their places at the presentation. One young woman broke off talking to a man and hurried to hug him. “Lapis!”

“How are you, Sunshine?” he asked Lisa, kissing her cheek. He did not see as much of her as he would like, but she had a lot of her father in her and—obviously—their relationship could be a bit volatile. She, like all of Erik’s children, was required to attend major company events, however.

“What is this?” she teased, brushing at the reddish beard he was sporting.

“My attempt to be taken more seriously,” he told her. It had taken him a while to convince Erik to let him try this. “No one listens to you when they think you’re only twenty-five.” Not to mention a slave. Lisa laughed confidently and somehow Lapis didn’t think she had a problem with people not taking her seriously, despite being only twenty herself. “How was your flight?” he asked her.

“Fine. I got in last night and stayed at Mom’s,” Lisa explained. Katherine had gotten herself a little apartment—one bedroom, Lisa had to sleep on the couch.

“Are you coming home with us?” Lapis invited. “We have a few guests but your room is available.” He always kept her room available for her.

“Maybe,” Lisa hedged. He felt it could be a yes by the end, if Erik didn’t do anything too monumentally rude in the meantime. Which was never a safe bet. “Who else is staying over?”

“Frank and Maria,” he listed expertly, “Eddie and Alana. Tyler and Emily aren’t, but did you hear—“

“Tyler brought a girlfriend to meet Dad!” Lisa snickered, but discreetly, because her oldest half-brother and said girlfriend were just on the other side of the room. “How did that go?”

Lapis made some expressive faces. “Well, I think,” he finally said. “He acknowledged her existence and got her name right.”

“Wow!” Lisa replied, impressed. “Sounds kind of crowded, though—“ she hesitated, of the house.

“No, not at all,” Lapis insisted. “I’m hoping we can all go out to dinner after the presentation, at Tarak’s. Before Jason has to catch his train.” Appearance at the presentation was mandatory, because now that they were older and less likely to cry or drool, Erik liked to show off his children to colleagues and the press. Appearance at dinner afterwards, where he had to actually interact with them, was _not_ mandatory. But Lapis was pretty good about squeezing it in.

“Listen, I’ve got something to tell you,” he added in a low voice, and drew Lisa off to a side room.

“Is this about the tuition?” Lisa asked baldly. “Because I know about that. Thank you.” She gave him another hug. “I think he really doesn’t deserve you. Where did you get the money?”

“He’s going to pay me back,” Lapis dismissed. “I knew it was just a tiff that—“

“Hardly a tiff, we’re not children!” she corrected indignantly, and Lapis smiled fondly and rubbed her arms.

“You know what he’s like,” he reminded her. “Don’t fall into his traps! And don’t think you can out-stubborn him.”

“I know,” Lisa sighed. It was a lesson she was still trying to learn.

“But that wasn’t what I was going to tell you,” Lapis went on. This was a delicate area, but so were a lot of things he dealt with. “Hardly anyone knows this. None of the other kids know, and Erik specifically told me _not_ to tell anyone.” Lisa nodded, understanding the seriousness of this. “There’s a new child,” he finally announced, and her mouth fell open in shock. “To debut at the presentation today. Poor girl, she’s in another room with just her mother—“

“It’s a _girl_?!” Lisa sputtered. Lapis had thought she might have a difficult time with this—all of her half-siblings by Erik were boys, and as much as they fought, she’d had no competition for the role of Erik’s princess. Until now.

And Lisa didn’t like competition.

Lapis saw her eyes narrow in a very Erik-like way and swooped in. “You know, she’s only fifteen,” he went on sympathetically. “We just found out and got things sorted. We hadn’t even heard any rumors—“

“She’s here somewhere?” Lisa interrupted. “What’s he going to do? Is he going to bring her on stage and introduce her?”

“There’s no plans for that,” Lapis hedged, “but you know how he loves to improvise—“ He had wanted Lisa, at least, to be warned ahead of time, so she didn’t have to react in public. He wasn’t too worried about the boys. “Imagine, one day you’re just an ordinary teenager, and the next you find out you’re Erik Lehnsherr’s daughter!” he continued, trying to get Lisa to empathize instead of seethe. Of course, she had no idea what it was like to be an ‘ordinary teenager’ herself. “And then he’s insisting you have to come out to California and appear before the press—“ It actually _was_ kind of horrible, and also threatened to upstage the product launch, but no one had been able to talk Erik out of it.

“Wait, how old did you say she was?” Lisa demanded, which Lapis hoped was a good sign.

“Only fifteen!” he repeated. “She’s from a small town in Ohio—“

“He cheated on you!” Lisa sputtered, her outrage having finally found a viable outlet. “What a b-----d—“

Lapis was struck dumb momentarily by this conclusion, having not thought of that himself. “No, no, he—it’s not like that, Sunshine,” he stammered to Lisa.

“Oh yeah?” she responded skeptically. “Didn’t he get you eighteen years ago? Was Eddie born by then or not?”

“Well, just barely—“ Lapis had to admit.

“So all of the _other_ kids were born before he met you!”

Lapis had to smile a little, because Lisa was the _only_ person who had framed this in terms of how it affected _him_ —even if she had ulterior motives. He would use whatever he could get, though. “You’re so sweet,” he said, hugging her, which she wasn’t expecting. “Thank you, Sunshine. But I don’t think of it that way.”

“Well why not?” she wanted to know, slightly perturbed that he was neutralizing her ire.

“Um, well—“ Lapis hadn’t even considered the idea recently, so he didn’t remember immediately why it would have been rejected. “I suppose he’d only had me a couple of years at that point, and we didn’t have an exclusive relationship yet.” He paused. “Well, obviously, _I_ couldn’t see anyone else.” Lapis rarely forgot he was a slave, but occasionally, he came close to it, considering the privileges Erik gave him. “But I didn’t expect it of _him_.”

“What about now?” Lisa challenged, and Lapis let the idea run across his face before choosing his words carefully.

“I can make someone’s life very unpleasant, if necessary,” he promised her, since she seemed to be looking for some kind of reassurance that he could stand up for himself. Which was also sweet. But this was not something Lapis really worried about, despite all the people who tried to throw themselves at Erik—Erik’s motto might have been ‘new, better, different, more,’ but there were _some_ things he preferred to keep the same.

“So you won’t tell the others?” he emphasized to her, although that part really wasn’t so important.

“No, I guess not,” she sighed. She liked knowing something exclusively, even if only for a little while. “What’s her name?”

“Rachel,” he told her. “I was hoping maybe you could sit by her, help her out a little.”

“Woman to woman?” Lisa asked archly.

“You have a unique perspective,” he noted.

“Fine, whatever,” Lisa agreed gracelessly, and Lapis rewarded her with a dazzling smile.

“Thank you so much, Sunshine,” he told her warmly. “I think it will really mean a lot to her.”

“Is she staying at the house, too?” Lisa wanted to know. “Why is she from Ohio?”

“Yes,” Lapis confirmed. “Her mother used to work for Erik, and kept her a secret until now.”

“Ouch,” Lisa commented.

“Indeed,” Lapis agreed dryly. “So it’s nice we’re getting a daughter, and not a harassment lawsuit.”

“Always the better choice,” Lisa quipped. Then her expression became thoughtful. “She grew up in Ohio, not knowing anything about us?” Lapis indicated yes—that was how Melissa had chosen to do things. “Well, I think she missed out, not knowing you,” she told the slave, giving him another hug. “You were the best thing about my childhood, Lapis.”

“Thank you,” he told her softly, unable to say more. He wasn’t _surprised_ by her comment, but it was so nice to know his efforts had been appreciated—yet at the same time, it made him terribly sad to think that her _actual_ parents hadn’t managed to do their jobs better. He pulled back reluctantly. “Well, I’d better go check on her,” he told Lisa. “I’ll see you later, Sunshine.”

Having set his plan in motion, Lapis went across the hall and knocked on another door—yet another waiting room, only with just two people in it. They looked around nervously as he entered and he smiled, trying to put them at ease.

“Hello, just me,” he assured them. “Here, I brought you some food,” he went on, setting down a plate with some bagels and fruit. “Have you got enough to drink, Rachel? You want to be careful, if you have to go to the bathroom it’s difficult to sneak offstage.” Just one thing he’d learned over the years.

“Sure, we’re fine,” Melissa replied. She was not enthusiastic about Erik’s grand plan, but seemed resigned to it, having started the whole thing rolling on her own.

“And how are you doing, sweetie?” Lapis asked, addressing the teen girl directly. “Are you nervous?”

Rachel was uncomfortably dressed up, her hair and make-up and jewelry likely far beyond what she was used to, but Erik insisted his children look nice for the press. “A little, I guess,” she admitted. “What’s going to happen?”

“Well, just before three we’re going to sit in the family section, which is on the side of the stage,” Lapis described.

“ _On_ the stage?” Rachel repeated faintly.

He smiled. “That’s right. Your mum will be there, and I’ll be there, and your grandmother”—Erik had at least introduced Rachel to his mother already—“and your dad’s other kids will be there. Maybe you’ve seen them on the news?”

Rachel shook her head; Lapis had the impression that once Melissa left San Francisco for her hometown, she tried to avoid any news about Erik.

“And we just have to sit there while Erik gives his talk. Kind of boring sometimes,” he went on, “but don’t fall asleep! Everyone will take pictures of that.” She mimicked his smile tentatively—falling asleep was the last thing on her mind, he was sure. “And tonight we’ll go out to dinner with everyone, and then before you know it you’ll be back in your room at the house.”

Rachel nodded slowly. “Are there going to be a lot of people out there?” she asked.

“Yes,” Lapis conceded. “Lots of reporters, and businesspeople, and TV cameras. Just… smile,” he advised. “Smile, keep your hands down, and try to ignore the crowd.” The other children had started this life when they were younger, and Erik was less famous; they were used to it by now, more or less. Rachel was being thrown into the deep end of the pool.

Lapis made eye contact with her and tried to convey sincerity. “I promise I’ll be keeping an eye on you,” he told her. “If you need anything, let me know, alright?” He waited until Rachel nodded, then checked with her mother, to include her. Melissa was being allowed to sit with Rachel as a special concession by Erik; the other mothers were never invited, except to stay backstage. Lapis had spent a lot of time wrangling the children on stage, which had severely tested the limits of his persuasive powers.

Then he had to leave Rachel and her mother to calm themselves on their own, and attend to other duties.

**

“Eddie. Jason,” Lapis hissed, and gestured that they should switch places. He’d laid out the seating chart carefully and they were _not_ going to mess it up. The two teenagers rolled their eyes but did as they were told. The crowd on the other side of the curtain was murmuring restlessly as the time for Erik’s talk to begin drew closer. He didn’t like to begin exactly at the stated time; he _could_ , but as a matter of control he preferred to be a couple minutes late, or early. Just to emphasize that this company ran on _Erik’s_ time, and not anyone else’s.

“Edie, could you—“ Erik’s mother looked up at him with a gaze that was somehow both sweet and steely, daring him to ask her to move. “Lisa, could you sit on Edie’s other side? Jason, Eddie, move down.” Quickly, Lapis redrew his seating chart, leaving two seats between Lisa and the aisle.

“Where are _you_ sitting?” Eddie wanted to know.

“I will be sitting behind you, so I can keep an eye on you,” Lapis replied severely, including all the boys in this warning. At least Eddie would also have his grandmother beside him to encourage good behavior. Though sometimes Edie could be a bit mischievous herself.

Lapis checked his watch and looked around for Erik. “Okay, last chance to go to the bathroom.” There were no takers. “Okay. I will be right back. No. Body. Move,” he ordered seriously. Then he had to leave them, to retrieve Rachel and her mother.

“Time to go,” he told them briskly, and shepherded the pair out into the hall, where they ran into Erik, who barely glanced at the women.

“You’re taking them to their seats?” he surmised, also checking his watch.

“Yes,” Lapis assured him.

“Well go,” Erik dismissed, heading in the opposite direction with Grace rushing after him.

Lapis guided Rachel and Melissa through the backstage maze, trying to be discreet. Most people were focused on the show that was about to begin, but Rachel stood out—a teenage girl, with Erik’s personal slave? Quite a few heads turned as they passed by.

“Okay, you’re going to sit there, next to Lisa,” Lapis told Rachel, “and Melissa, you’ll be on the end. I’ll be in the row behind you if you need anything. Remember, smile and keep your hands down!”

“Who’s that?” murmured some of the boys. Edie reached across Lisa to take Rachel’s hand briefly.

“Hi, I’m Lisa,” Lapis heard, with a reasonable facsimile of good cheer, and then the audience started applauding because Erik had walked on stage, and the curtain in front of their seats pulled back to reveal the hall full of flashing cameras and staring faces.

Instantly a buzz began as Rachel and Melissa were noticed. Lapis saw Lisa squeezing the girl’s arm on one side, providing support, and he hoped she had a smile pasted on her face—he would have to check the photos online later.

Erik let this go on for a couple minutes, then gave a signal that darkened the lights behind him, including those over the family seats. That didn’t make them invisible, but it told the audience they had better shift their attention back to Erik, who fortunately was quite a dynamic speaker. Lapis and the others onstage couldn’t really see the presentation well from their angle, though Lapis of course had seen the practice runs. He noticed Frank and Tyler exchanging notes on a piece of paper, but they seemed discreet enough—he had found it was best to allow them _some_ outlet.

“…the interface is completely intuitive,” Erik was claiming. “You can pick this up and start using it with no prior knowledge. Can I get a volunteer to come up here and demonstrate?” Eager noises came from the audience, and Erik made a show of looking them over before his gaze wheeled over to the family section. “Rachel,” he summoned, and Lapis’s heart stopped.

 _Please let him be joking_ , he thought desperately, but Erik did not joke like that.

“Rachel, come on over here and try this,” Erik encouraged—it was a command wrapped in a pleasant demeanor, for the moment, and Lapis surged into gear, sliding to the seat behind Rachel.

“Smile, look at him, don’t look at them,” he hissed in her ear. “Get up. Go!”

Slightly shell-shocked Rachel stood and scooted past her mother—Melissa was fuming—and walked across the stage, her knees rubbery. Everyone in the audience seemed to have a camera on her, now that she had been given a name if not a context.

“That’s it, come here,” Erik told her. “Now, have you ever seen this device before today?” he asked, like this was no big deal and all perfectly normal. Rachel shook her head. “Okay, take this—“ Rachel promptly dropped the prototype on the stage and everyone froze. “It’s okay, it’s shock-proof,” Erik promised, scooping it back up and showing that it was fine, as if he’d engineered the drop on purpose. He gave it back to Rachel. “Okay, how would you check your email?”

With some hesitation Rachel went for an icon and an email program popped open. “Right, exactly,” Erik praised, smiling warmly at her, and she couldn’t help but respond.

 _This might not be horrible_ , Lapis thought with faint hope.

Erik got her to use a few other functions, the view on her screen beamed to the large one behind them for everyone to see. The interface _must_ have been intuitive, if a terrified teenage girl could figure it out on a stage in front of everyone, so in that respect it was a brilliant demonstration. Once Lapis’s heart stopped pounding so hard on Rachel’s behalf, though, he was seriously peeved at Erik for the stunt.

Finally Erik deemed her involvement sufficient and he sent her back to her seat, which prompted a round of applause for her. Erik had more to say, more wild predictions to make that his development team didn’t realize were on the drawing board, and he quickly commandeered the attention again.

Rachel sat back down in her seat, to quiet acclaim. “Good job, sweetie,” Lapis assured her, squeezing her shoulder. “Wonderful!” He just hoped that was the last surprise Erik had in mind for this talk.

~*~*~*~*~*~

_~*~*~ Lapis@37 ~*~*~_

Board meetings never went well. In Erik’s opinion, the Board was there to oversee the dull administrative duties that he didn’t want to deal with himself—the world’s most powerful secretaries, basically. They were not supposed to question or disagree with him, merely find a way to carry out his will, the same as any other employee. And after the issue with Mr. Nash many years ago, Erik no longer trusted any one person to manage the Board on his behalf, but insisted upon doing it himself—if herding them in the direction he wanted them to go like an irate shepherd with recalcitrant sheep could be called ‘managing.’

Lapis knew his place at these meetings; he sat off to the side, where Erik could see him—never at the table, of course. He took notes rapidly, having studied the reports Erik so often neglected, and occasionally asked a clarifying question or redirected Erik’s attention when he got on a vitriolic rant. Later, he would discuss the issues with Erik, and try to offer a more palatable interpretation of the Board’s recommendations. He had learned long ago to never advocate a particular position; he wasn’t someone who would ‘influence’ Erik in one direction or another, at someone else’s request. He merely tried to moderate Erik’s visceral reactions of mistrust and opposition when it came to, well, _anything_ the Board wanted him to do.

So far, today’s meeting had not been too bad. Some sales were down, others were up, interest was high in new products on the horizon, and there were a few challenges to keep people from getting complacent. Erik didn’t like complacency.

“There’s just one more thing we wanted to discuss,” said Mr. DeGarmo, glancing around at some of the others to make sure they were behind him. That usually meant it was something Erik wouldn’t like. “Lapis, would you mind stepping outside?” he added unexpectedly.

“Don’t talk to him,” Erik ordered. Another reason why Lapis could never become someone who did favors—he wasn’t allowed to speak to certain people whom Erik didn’t like. Which was fine with him. “Stay where you are. Spit it out, Hank.”

Mr. DeGarmo gave Lapis a brief apologetic look. “There’s a new Emancipation Act in committee in Congress,” he began uncomfortably, and Erik scoffed and spun around in his chair, having heard this argument before. “Our sources in Washington say it’s likely to pass this time—“

“It’ll take a year just to get out of committee,” Erik predicted scornfully. “Depending on who gets elected next season, it could die in debate.”

“Nevertheless,” continued Ms. Rodriguez, “public opinion is trending strongly against owning slaves now, the same as in Europe.”

“So? What’s your point?” Erik asked, though he knew very well what her point was. Lapis felt intensely self-conscious but tried to sit still and pretend he was studying a report.

“It might be prudent to encourage employees to… _not_ own slaves,” Ms. Rodriguez described, purposefully vague. “Our research suggests it leads to an image problem.”

“An image problem?” Erik repeated slowly, acidly.

Mr. DeGarmo jumped in supportively. “I mean, times change, right?” he tried gamely. “We’re always innovating, trying new things. I think our customers want to see that we’re a progressive company, that we have a sense of social responsibility—“

He was warming to this topic, but Erik was not. “I think our customers should keep their f-----g noses out of my personal life, which goes for the rest of you as well,” he shot back, scouring everyone at the table with his gaze.

Mr. DeGarmo took a breath to speak, but Erik cut him off. “No, I don’t want to hear it,” he ordered coldly. “Our company policies _are_ progressive, and always have been. That is what should matter to our customers, not what I do on my own time.”

“Erik,” Ms. Rodriguez tried in a conciliatory tone, “maybe you could just think about what the possible outcomes might be, if some kind of Emancipation Act _is_ passed in the near future. We’ll need a strategy for handling that, so we can get in front of the story—“

Erik saw through her tactics and was not pleased. “We’re done here. You can all go.” The semblance of politeness in his tone only highlighted the tension in the room. “You can all go _now_ ,” he encouraged, like he was doing them a favor, and they got the point and began hurriedly gathering up their notebooks and coffees, and filed out of the conference room. Erik watched them leave, leaning back in his leather chair like a king on his throne, his gaze imperious. When the door had shut for the last time, he slowly swiveled his chair to face Lapis.

The slave was still pretending to be engrossed in his notes, but a quick glance at Erik left him fatally ensnared by the other man’s gaze. “What did you have for lunch?” Erik asked him conversationally.

“Um, sushi,” Lapis recalled, trying to make his tone normal. “Miso soup.”

“That’s not very filling,” Erik judged. “Are you hungry? Do you want a sandwich?”

Lapis grimaced. “Maybe some fruit, or a salad?” he proposed instead.

“Right, cutting carbs,” Erik agreed. “That’s probably a good idea. Let’s get some salads.”

“Okay, I’ll do that,” Lapis promised. Were they just going to pretend that whole last conversation with the Board hadn’t happened?

Erik sprang from his chair energetically and headed for the door, so apparently the answer was yes, and Lapis hurried after him. The Board members, knowing what was good for them, had used the head start Erik had graciously given them to vacate the area.

“It’s just—I don’t know why they’re even asking those questions,” Erik said randomly, and Lapis wondered if he was still talking about carbs. “Next, are they going to tell me that research shows our stock price will go up if I cut my hair a certain way?”

Not carbs, then. “That did actually happen once,” Lapis reminded him in a lighter tone, and Erik sneered at the memory. He had been equally dismissive of the Board’s interference then, if not quite so indignant.

“I just don’t like being told what to do in my personal life,” Erik stated, as if this was some kind of revelation, and Lapis snorted.

“You don’t like to be told what to do _at all_ ,” he corrected.

Erik felt this was fair. “And look where we are!” he noted, spreading his arms to encompass the expansive view across the city and the mountains visible through the wall of windows. Clearly his attitude was the right one, to have achieved all this.

“Right,” Lapis agreed. He stopped following Erik. “I have to go do the—“

“Okay,” Erik nodded. Lapis had duties elsewhere. “Get us two salads,” he ordered a secretary working nearby. “No carbs. Put some seeds or something on it for protein.”

“Yes, sir,” he answered promptly.

They started to part ways, then Erik leaned back. “I’ll see you later,” he told Lapis, a bit unexpectedly.

“Right.” With that they went in opposite directions.

**

There was no point in Lapis thinking about it. It was not a healthy way to spend his time, and when he realized he was contemplating it too much, he snapped his attention to another topic. He had a very good life with Erik, much better than he ever dreamed he would have—to want yet _more_ was to be profoundly ungrateful to the universe.

It was okay to acknowledge, though, that it was _awkward_ when the topic came up. It upset Erik, and Lapis never knew what expression he ought to have, or what he ought to say. Was he supposed to assure people, “No, it’s fine, I _like_ being Erik’s slave”? The words stuck in his throat. Fortunately, Erik had never asked him to give an opinion on the matter.

That was too much thinking, and Lapis forced his concentration to return to the movie he was watching, curled up on the sofa. “Erik! You’re missing it!” he called. The man was always working, he needed to relax a little.

Lapis was about to go in search of him when he heard Erik’s cell phone ring in another room, and sat back down on the couch with a sigh. No one called Erik’s cell phone unless they thought it was really important.

“She _what_?!” he dimly heard Erik snap into the phone. “Did she get arrested?” _That_ was not a phrase Lapis often heard, and he immediately stopped the movie and went to find the other man.

Erik was pacing tensely around his study. “Oh, just _detained_ ,” he repeated sarcastically. “Stuck around long enough to be photographed!” He saw Lapis standing there questioningly. “Lisa was _protesting_ at college,” he relayed. “Some student thing. With _signs_.” The signs apparently made it worse.

“Did something happen?” Lapis worried. “Is she okay?”

“Apparently the peace was disturbed, and the police broke it up,” Erik told him. “Stop, I am talking,” he ordered the person on the phone.

“But she’s okay?” Lapis pressed.

“Lapis wants to know if she’s okay,” Erik demanded into his phone. “She’s okay,” he conveyed. “But what the f—k was she thinking? This is not just stupid kid stuff, she knew _exactly_ how this would be taken—“

“What was she protesting?” Lapis wanted to know.

“ _Passionate_?!” Erik spat into the phone. “Holy s—t, Grace! Really? You, too? Did the Board tell you that?”

Lapis had a sick feeling in his stomach as he guessed the answer to his question. “What was she protesting?” he asked again anyway.

“Of _course_ it will be on the news!” Erik continued to rant. “She made _certain_ of that, I’m sure! _No_ , I _don’t_ want you to call her, I don’t want to talk to her!”

“Erik!” Lapis said sharply, interrupting him. He took a breath, trying to steady himself. “What was she protesting?”

“Slavery,” Erik told him succinctly, and Lapis sat down in a chair, feeling light-headed.

“Hang on, Grace,” Erik said, and put the phone down to kneel in front of Lapis. “Hey, are you okay?” he asked, voice suddenly tender with concern. He rubbed Lapis’s hands. “Hey, Lisa’s okay, she didn’t get arrested or anything.”

Lapis sniffled and nodded. He couldn’t—he _could not_ be the cause of more strife between Lisa and her father, another thing for those two stubborn fools to argue about—But it was hardly his own fault, was it? Or was it? Had he not been clear enough to Lisa that he was— _happy_ —

Grace, ignored, squawked from the phone. “Don’t move,” Erik told Lapis, and retrieved his cell. “What, Grace? Honestly, I don’t know what the f—k to say,” he admitted, his tone calmer. “Tell them I support her right to freedom of expression,” he suggested dryly. He was keeping a sharp eye on his slave. “Look, I have to go. Just downplay it, don’t mention Lapis at all. He’s upset enough as it is.” He hung up, Grace still talking, and went back to Lapis.

The slave had been trying to pull himself together. “Sorry,” he told Erik. “I’m okay. I was just surprised, she’s never mentioned anything before.” He did not want Erik to think this was something he and Lisa had talked about, that he had _encouraged_ her.

“She’s always liked you, though,” Erik replied. This was clearly supposed to be comforting. “It’ll blow over in a few days,” he dismissed. “At least she wasn’t photographed using an IBM computer,” he reflected, seemingly serious. “Anyway, she’s just trying to embarrass me, she’ll come up with a new method next month—“

“No,” Lapis countered. “Lisa isn’t like that. Lisa’s nice.” Against all odds, and the examples of her parents, she was _nice_. So if she was protesting slavery, knowing full well her father had a slave, it must be because she felt it was important. Which brought Lapis back to his earlier dilemma. “Sorry, I—“ He stopped himself, not knowing what to say next.

Erik cupped his cheek gently. “Don’t apologize,” he said, and Lapis nodded. “What do you want to do now?”

Lapis took a breath. “We should call Grace back and reassure her about what to say,” he judged, trying to think clearly. “’Freedom of expression’ will just sound snarky when all the news anchors repeat it. And we should actually talk to Lisa as well—“

“I’ve got all that,” Erik claimed, which Lapis found rather unbelievable. “What do _you_ want to do?” Lapis didn’t know what he meant. “You want to go read a book or something? I can take care of this.”

It took Lapis a moment to realize Erik was trying to be nice to him, to not put him in the position of defending his own captivity, and he smiled finally. “Would you mind if I called Lisa?” he asked. “I just want to talk to her.”

Erik rolled his eyes, but his mood was lighter than before. “Fine,” he allowed. “But don’t try to get _me_ to talk to her! She’s getting the silent treatment for a while.”

Lapis did not think Lisa would find this unduly burdensome. “Okay,” he agreed anyway, standing. “I’ll just go to my room.”

“Hey,” Erik called after him. “Eat some pretzels or something, you seemed kind of faint for a minute there. And take the elevator upstairs!”

Lapis just smiled and nodded, understanding that this meant Erik cared about him.

**

The Emancipation Act was enjoying broad support. Well-known slave owners were increasingly attacked by the media, and many were investigating their options, from straight sales to sending their human assets to countries where the climate was more favorable. After all these years Lapis was not worried that Erik would sell him or send him away; but the question remained, what _would_ Erik do? They did not ever have a conversation about it; Lapis had no idea what he himself would say, what he would suggest. It was not even something he was supposed to be thinking about, according to the voices in his head from his childhood.

But someone had to say something soon.

“Are you still awake?” They were lying in bed, Erik’s arm proprietarily wrapped around Lapis’s waist.

“You haven’t worn me out yet,” Lapis assured him teasingly, though lately it seemed like Erik had been _trying_ , his attentions more passionate than ever. Lapis started to roll over to face him, but apparently Erik wanted him right where he was.

“Tomorrow I want you to find a lawyer,” Erik said, which was not what Lapis was expecting to hear at this point.

“What?”

“A lawyer,” Erik repeated. “Pay him from your own account. I know you have a lot of money,” he added in a needling tone, having not forgotten how Lapis had paid for Lisa’s college tuition (which Erik had swiftly repaid).

How he was to pay for this lawyer was not Lapis’s main concern, however. “Why do I need a lawyer?” he wanted to know.

“Well, you need some unbiased legal advice,” Erik explained casually. “About your options.” His fingers stroked Lapis’s arm idly. “I’m not going to wait for some law to tell me I have to set you free,” he went on scornfully. “I’m going to do it _now_. And then I was thinking we could get married.” There was a long silence. “Lapis?”

The other man forcibly rolled over to face Erik, so he could look him in the eye and make sure he wasn’t—well, Erik didn’t joke much, and certainly not about this. But make sure he hadn’t gone mad, perhaps. Erik’s genius often looked like madness at first.

Only when Erik lay there, looking remarkably patient and sane, did Lapis begin to let the thoughts percolate through his brain. “You’re going to set me free?” he repeated dully. “And marry me?” Mostly his mind was just filled with white noise.

“I’m _going_ to set you free,” Erik confirmed. “But we’re only going to get married if you want to do that. Because you’ll be free, and you can decide.” Lapis did not know what to say, or to think; he had no point of reference for being free, for making such momentous decisions. Actually it suddenly seemed terrifying, a yawning black chasm instead of the well-defined path he was used to.

“If we get married, nothing will change,” Erik asserted. “I’m still going to tell you what to do all the time. I’ll expect you to help out at work like you do, and with the kids. It’s just that if you don’t like it, you’ll be able to leave. And probably sue me for a pretty hefty share of my estate.”

Naturally Erik had considered the worst-case scenario. “I’m—I’m not going to sue you,” Lapis finally stuttered, and Erik made a skeptical noise.

“Don’t be so sure until you talk to your lawyer,” he warned. “We’re not going to have a pre-nup or anything, either. I’m tired of contracts about family members, I don’t want another one. Either you accept that everything is going to stay the same, or you can leave. You can keep whatever I’ve given you—“

Lapis kissed him before Erik began planning their divorce settlement, his cynical nature getting in the way of the perfect happiness crystallizing in Lapis’s mind. Of course Erik would come up with the right plan, and of course he would present it with annoyance, trying to defy the authorities who would tell him what to do. None of that bothered Lapis, who could see beneath the outer layers down to what Erik really meant—because he wouldn’t offer to marry someone out of _spite_ , after all. Only love, however well-concealed.

Erik was smiling, just a little, when they pulled apart. “Is that a yes?” he asked dryly.

“ _Yes_ ,” Lapis agreed emphatically, clutching at him lest he evaporate as a dream. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Erik!” He had, perhaps once or twice, daydreamed about saying those words.

“No, you can’t yet,” Erik denied. “You can’t agree until you’re free. And we’re not having a big wedding, we’ll just do it all at once here with minimal fuss, and then we’ll take a trip,” he suggested. “Where do you want to go?”

“Hawaii,” Lapis replied immediately. “We can spend our honeymoon in Hawaii.” Erik kissed him again, a sign he was not so unaffected by this development as he pretended.

“You can’t tell anyone,” he warned. “No one. Except your lawyer.” Lapis nodded dutifully. “Once it gets out the press will go crazy.” He paused to consider this. “Well, I don’t really care,” he decided, and pulled Lapis into his arms again.

Things were starting to escalate—Lapis _wanted_ them to escalate, he wanted to show Erik how much this idea meant to him, how happy it made him—but Erik had more to tell him, apparently. “Exactly the same,” he reiterated, pulling back. He seemed very keen that Lapis acknowledge this part.

“I understand,” Lapis assured him. Erik could not be other than he was; and he had always been himself with Lapis, so why should that change? Lapis wouldn’t _want_ it to change, for Erik to treat him in some special new way that put distance between them. Though, he wondered if, in his own mind, there might not be a profound difference, that he couldn’t yet imagine.

“Follow me around, sit in on meetings, eat what I say—“ Erik didn’t really tell Lapis what to do _that_ much anymore; he simply reserved the _right_ to.

“I understand,” Lapis repeated warmly. That took some of the fear away, knowing he would still have his routines, duties, expectations. “Only, I was wondering…” he began tentatively, daring to pull up another forbidden fantasy, “if we could adopt a baby.” He braced himself.

“What?!” Erik sputtered. “No. What? Why?” The ‘why’ was a good sign; if it was a firm no, Erik wouldn’t care about why.

“I would love for us to have a baby, that was ours and not shared with anyone else,” Lapis sighed happily. Even just thinking about it made him warm with delight, because he would never have considered it remotely possible when he was just a slave.

“Like, a _new_ baby?” Erik specified. “Are you tired of the old ones? They can finally have decent conversations now.”

“No, I’m not tired of the old ones,” Lapis promised, hugging him. It was just that they were all teenagers or older now, and when young their mothers had always been major influences, which was proper of course. But Lapis dreamed of a child he and Erik could raise themselves, as partners (as much as anyone could be a partner to Erik), who lived with them all the time, and didn’t have to be returned at the end.

Erik seemed to find his contentment suspicious. “We’re going to table that discussion for now,” he declared.

“Okay,” Lapis agreed, snuggling in.

“We can’t really discuss it fairly until you’re free.”

“Okay. And when will that be?” Lapis asked, for information.

“Tomorrow, talk to a lawyer,” Erik said again, “and let me know what kind of timetable he suggests. I’m ready to move forward quickly, but I don’t want to invalidate anything by rushing.”

“Okay. I’ll find someone tomorrow,” Lapis assured him. That was an intimidating task, but one he was pleased to accomplish. “Thank you, Erik,” he added, curling up close to him.

“Please don’t thank me for doing this,” Erik requested, holding him tightly. His lips brushed Lapis’s forehead. “It’s entirely self-serving.” Not _entirely_ , Lapis suspected, but he let Erik have the last word.

**

“Are you actually nervous?” Erik asked scathingly. “Why are you nervous? You don’t have to _do_ anything!”

“It’s a big day for me,” Lapis tried to explain. He suspected that Erik was nervous, too, just a little bit, from the way he paced around, and had taken extra care when dressing that morning. “It’s a big day for _us_!”

“Did you pack already?” Erik wanted to know. “For the trip we may or may not be taking, depending on if we get married.” He insisted on referring to this as a mere possibility, despite having booked the resort and plane. Lapis found this endearing, interpreting it both as Erik’s attempt to give him autonomy, and as a rare bit of insecurity on Erik’s part. It would be a big day for _him_ , too, Lapis suspected, once he was convinced it was really happening.

Lapis had enough trouble convincing _himself_ of that—he was in a suit, he’d been running around the house seeing to Grace and their legally-empowered visitors—he might just have been preparing for an important business meeting. It was easier to think of it that way sometimes, lest he get overwhelmed. Erik did not handle emotional scenes well.

Erik spun around as if inspecting the luggage gathered near the bed. He straightened his tie and then his jacket, and then Lapis’s. “Well, why don’t we get on with it,” he suggested.

“Okay,” Lapis agreed.

“That wasn’t a question,” Erik corrected. “It’s _my_ decision to free you. You have nothing to do with it.”

“Right, of course.” At this moment, Lapis had nothing but what Erik chose to give him.

They went down the stairs. Grace was fluttering around the study with the two lawyers and the judge; of course they had told her what was going on (eventually), she was one of Erik’s oldest friends and sometimes his _only_ friend. Though, Lapis did not know exactly _what_ she had been told, as he was still forbidden to discuss it with anyone but his lawyer, who greeted him with a cheerful wave.

“This is so exciting!” Grace enthused, giving Lapis a hug. “I’m so happy for you, sweetie!”

“It’s _not_ exciting,” Erik countered contrarily. “It’s just signing some papers. And don’t be happy for him, it’s a cold, hard world out there for an unemployed free person. He doesn’t even have any marketable skills!”

Grace rolled her eyes at Erik’s poor taste in humor; with hundreds of thousands of slaves soon to be freed across the country, the lack of job skills was precisely what many people were worried about—for those former slaves who didn’t have a billionaire certain to take care of them.

“I could get a job,” Lapis realized suddenly. He had literally never thought about that before. He hadn’t meant to blurt it out though, Erik was looking over some papers— _the_ papers—and Lapis didn’t want to distract him.

“As what?” Erik challenged. “You can barely spell. That’s going to hold you back a lot.”

“I could be a model,” Lapis suggested playfully, trying not to look at the papers Erik held. “I could model eyeglasses.”

“You know, you could,” Erik agreed thoughtfully. “Since you have pretty eyes. I know some fashion people in New York, I’ll write you a letter of reference.” He laid the papers down on his desk and picked up a pen, flipping to the last page.

At that moment the driveway chime rang, and Lapis thought he might just keel over dead from the tension. “What the f—k?!” Erik snapped, apparently feeling the same way. “Grace!”

“I’ll go see who it is,” she agreed, hurrying to the door.

“Tell whoever it is to go away!” Erik insisted, with extreme irritation. He had set the pen down. “I have to do this in the right frame of mind, or someone might challenge it later,” he claimed to Lapis.

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Erik,” Lapis told him, with as much sincerity as he could muster, and Erik made a face at him.

The front door opened again and Grace’s voice was heard. “—a little busy at the moment, but I’m sure they’ll want to see you in a few minutes—“

“I do not want to see anyone!” Erik contradicted loudly.

“Is he in a mood or what?” That was Lisa’s voice, and Lapis sprang towards the foyer to greet her.

“I’m so glad to see you, Sunshine!” he said, giving her a hug. “Come in here, this makes everything perfect—“

“Am I speaking to her?” Erik checked suspiciously.

“ _Yes_ ,” Lapis asserted, as Lisa rolled her eyes.

“Alright, fine,” Erik agreed ungraciously. “Are you having some kind of emergency?” he inquired of Lisa.

“No,” she replied, bemused.

“Good. Then we’re doing this first.” And Erik picked up his pen and scrawled his name across the line.

Lapis drew in a deep breath and sat down hard on the couch. “What’s wrong?” Lisa asked him worriedly. “What’s going on?”

Erik was just grinning, waiting for him to articulate it on his own. “I’m free,” Lapis breathed. The words swirled through his mind like a cloud of smoke, significant but elusive. “I’m not a slave anymore.”

“What?!” squawked Lisa.

“Technically, you aren’t free until—“ Erik looked back to see that Grace had already signed, as witness. “Grace!” he complained. “You’re ruining the drama!”

“You set him free?!” Lisa repeated with disbelief.

“Well I wasn’t—“ Unexpectedly Lisa threw her arms around her father.

“You’re so great, Dad!” she told him tearfully, perhaps a little exaggerated but nonetheless sincere, and not something Erik heard often.

Grace came over to hug Lapis, so he wouldn’t feel left out, but he was so happy to see Lisa and Erik getting along for the moment—he hadn’t thought he could feel any happier, and his eyes started to well up.

Sensing this, Erik went back on the attack. “Don’t cry!” he demanded.

“You can’t tell him what to do anymore!” Lisa retorted gleefully. “He’s not your slave!”

“When has that ever stopped me with anyone else?” Erik asked dryly. “Hey, you want to know your new name?” he asked Lapis. “That’s part of the deal, I set you free, I have to choose a name for you, because technically you’ve just been an ID number all this time.”

The former slave was well aware of this, as he was usually the one who filled out their paperwork. “What’s my new name?” he asked, a bit worriedly. Erik liked naming things, a little _too_ much.

Erik smirked and waved dismissively. “Eh, just Lapis Lehnsherr,” he revealed, which was what Lapis had gone by informally for many years. “I didn’t want to confuse you.”

Lapis stood, the need to touch Erik, to solidify their connection, burning in him. “Thank—“

“Don’t thank me,” Erik warned him sternly, holding up a finger to ward him off. “I told you that before. No thanking, no hugging.” Lapis stopped in his tracks, and imagined the restriction pained Erik as well. “Now I _suggest_ that you and your lawyer go take a walk around the block, and think about what you want to do next in life.”

Lapis nodded, still slightly shell-shocked, eyes moist. He _did_ feel different, the whole _world_ felt different, and full of possibility. For brief, thrilling moments he entertained fantastical ideas about what he might do, where he might go next—but deep down he was certain of his plans, and this time, he would _know_ he was making the choice himself.

Erik saw Lapis and his lawyer out the door, part of him not wanting to let the younger man out of his sight; but that was an irrational response, and Erik was extremely confident that he would be back. He just had to wait—which admittedly was not Erik’s strong suit.

“Are we going to celebrate?” Lisa demanded, somewhat confused by this sequence of events. “Are we going to have a party or something?”

“No,” Erik replied, as if that should be obvious. “This is all very quiet. You can’t tell anyone until I say. What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I’m on _break_ ,” Lisa told him. “Thought Lapis at least would want to see me—“

“ _I_ want to see you,” Erik claimed.

“—but I didn’t know he’d be free!” Lisa relived happily. “Should I just go over to Mom’s? When is he coming back?”

“Stick around a little longer,” Erik advised mysteriously, encompassing Grace in this as well. “Might be—oh, s—t,” he realized suddenly. “You’re here for the week?” he checked with Lisa, who nodded. “We’re leaving this afternoon,” he sighed. “ _Might_ be leaving. On a trip, for the week.” He did, actually, to a certain extent, enjoy spending time with Lisa now, when she wasn’t being stubborn and argumentative anyway.

“Oh, where are you going?”

“Hawaii,” Erik replied. “ _If_ we go.”

“I love Hawaii!” Lisa proclaimed. “Can I come, too?” This had happened before.

Erik imagined this for a nanosecond. “No,” he told her firmly. “And don’t ask Lapis, because he’s soft and he’ll say yes, but he’ll regret it later and be too polite to say anything.”

“Wow, you’ve got that all planned out,” Lisa assessed dryly.

“Did you _tell_ someone you were coming here?” Erik wanted to know, still mystified as to how this disappointing conflict came about. “Did Lapis screw this up? Well, okay, he’s been busy lately,” he allowed as Grace tsked him.

“No, he didn’t screw it up,” Lisa promised, scoffing at her father. “It was a last-minute decision, I was supposed to go to Fort Lauderdale with Becca and Kelly, but they’re being total b---hes right now so I bailed.”

“Did you get a full refund?” Erik questioned, since it was likely _his_ money.

“Yes!”

“Well, okay, that seems sensible, then,” he agreed. He had no idea who Becca and Kelly were, but he wasn’t surprised they were unpleasant. “You can stay here, the staff will look after you. No parties or anything fun, though.”

Lisa made a face at these restrictions, but Erik was well aware that his house was a significantly more comfortable and accommodating place for Lisa than her mother’s, which didn’t even have a bedroom for her anymore. Or cable. Or a pool. As the list of amenities ticked off behind Lisa’s eyes, Erik wasn’t too worried about which choice she would make.

“So you and Lapis are going to Hawaii to celebrate him being free?” Lisa checked.

“I don’t know,” Erik replied, maddeningly. He was determined not to solidify this in his mind yet. “I don’t know if we’re going or not. If he comes back, he gets to decide what to do. We just made all the plans already because it’s hard to be spontaneous with my schedule,” he admitted. “But he might decide he doesn’t want to go after all.”

“You’re taking this not-a-slave thing very seriously,” Lisa observed, half proud and half mocking.

“Probably won’t last long,” Erik conceded.

Just when Erik was getting really antsy, and Lisa and Grace insisted upon discussing stultifying dull topics like Lisa’s college classes, he heard the front door open again. Lapis walked back into the house slowly, thoughtfully. The people he cared most about were all waiting for him as he entered the study, and he smiled at each of them in turn, trying to preserve the moment in his mind for later savoring.

“Well, how are you feeling?” Erik asked, smug but somehow in a charming way. It was a comforting fallback position for him. “Did everything look different out there? A little shinier, perhaps?”

He was teasing, of course, but Lapis grinned. “It did,” he promised. “Everything looks more—“ He didn’t know quite how to describe it.

“No, it doesn’t,” Erik dismissed pleasantly. “Everything looks exactly the same as it did an hour ago.”

“No, you’re wrong,” Lapis contradicted clearly, with some glee, and Erik laughed.

“You’re enjoying this freedom thing, huh?” he surmised, as Lapis had never dared say those words to him before. Not that Erik would’ve _done_ anything to him; but it hadn’t been in his nature, as a slave. Erik looked forward to seeing how else he felt emboldened, and deliberately kept his arms folded tight across his chest, to avoid reaching for him. “Well, what do you want to do next? Have you decided? We thought maybe he could get a job,” he added to Lisa, “modeling eyeglasses.” She was not sure how to take that.

Lapis drifted closer to Erik, who straightened unconsciously. “Yes, I have given it some thought,” he agreed, trying to give the moment the weight he felt it deserved. His seriousness made Erik a little nervous, in case he’d decided to deviate from the plan, but he said nothing, letting Lapis take the lead.

“I don’t have very much,” Lapis told Erik. “I don’t have much schooling, or job experience, or skills. I’ve got a little money in the bank”—Erik smirked faintly—“but it’s not much to live on, not around here, anyway. I’m afraid I couldn’t keep you in the style to which you’ve become accustomed,” he admitted. “But, I love you, Erik. Will you marry me anyway?”

There were a couple of surprised noises in the background, but all of Lapis’s attention was fixed on Erik. For a moment, his smirk faltered, and there was something warm and real in his eyes, and he pulled Lapis close suddenly. “Yes, I’ll marry you,” he told him softly, and kissed him soundly.

Lisa cleared her throat loudly. “Getting awkward, guys!” she insisted, but joyfully, and ran to hug them both when it seemed safe.

“I can’t believe it!” Grace exclaimed, joining in the hugging and dabbing at her teary eyes. “Well, you’ve practically been married for twenty years already, you might as well make it official!”

This was enough to put Erik back on more comfortable, less sentimental ground, though he kept firm hold of Lapis. “G-d, twenty years?” he repeated negatively. “That makes me feel old. It hasn’t been _that_ long.”

“Grace, do you remember when he picked out my name?” Lapis asked her, unable to keep the grin off his face. For some reason this memory had been resurfacing in his mind lately. “It sounded so weird to me!”

“Well, me too,” she agreed.

“I never thought it was weird,” Lisa insisted loyally. “It’s just a name, names are weird.”

“It’s unique and memorable—“ Erik tried to protest.

“So he’s telling me about it, and he has this _pocket guide_ to gemstones and he’s holding it up to my face to match the color to my eyes,” Lapis recalled, laughing. His fingers twined comfortably with Erik’s. “He told me the name was a great branding opportunity!”

That sounded so much like Erik that everyone chuckled, except Erik of course. “It _is_ ,” he claimed. “You’re a single-name celebrity now, like Madonna and Cher. No one says, ‘Oh, do you mean Lapis Smith or Lapis Johnson?’”

Lapis was not always fond of being a celebrity, uniquely named or not, and he grimaced slightly as he imagined the furor today’s events would cause in the press. But not even that could dampen his spirits for long, and he feared the gaze he shared with Erik might have been turning gooey.

“So,” Erik went on finally, clearing his throat, “are we going to do this now?”

“Yes, let’s do it now, then we should leave for the airport,” Lapis agreed pragmatically. There would be time to celebrate more later.

“It’s a private plane,” Erik reminded him contrarily, even as he picked up the next set of documents. “They won’t leave without us.”

Meanwhile Grace and Lisa were crying foul. “Wait, you had this all _planned_?” Lisa sputtered.

“Naturally,” Erik replied smartly.

“And the trip to Hawaii is actually your _honeymoon_?”

“That’s why you can’t come with us,” he reiterated.

Lapis looked up from the paper he was perusing. “Oh, did you want to come with us?” he asked worriedly. “Oh, and you’re here for the week, too…” He looked uncertainly at Erik, who merely laughed.

“No,” he decreed. “We are not bringing anyone along on our honeymoon. That’s a deal-breaker for me.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t _want_ to come,” Lisa insisted, much to Lapis’s relief.

“I’m sorry, Sunshine, I didn’t realize you would be here on break,” he said regretfully. “I thought you were going to Fort Lauderdale—“

“Old news!” Erik interrupted impatiently. “Have you gone over that? Are you ready to sign?”

Lapis took a breath, refocusing. “Yes,” he decided. They signed the documents, their witnesses did as well, the judge said a few words, and then—

“Okay, first thing, I want you to change your name,” Erik deadpanned. “You can hyphenate.”

“Lapis Lehnsherr-hyphen-Lehnsherr?” Lapis tried. “I think that’s a bit much.” His voice sounded remarkably normal to his own ears; but he couldn’t stop holding on to Erik somehow. He didn’t want to let him go ever again—and now he wasn’t merely trailing him as devoted slave, but walking forward by his side, by his own free will. He leaned in to kiss Erik again, because he could.

“Chapstick,” Erik insisted unromantically. “Too much kissing makes your lips chapped.”

“I’ll bring plenty with me, then,” Lapis shot back flirtatiously.

“Oh my G-d, you’re my stepdad now!” Lisa exclaimed, somewhere between delight and horror. Lapis had always been important to her, of course, but more like a playmate or young uncle.

“That makes _you_ sound old,” Erik teased Lapis.

“I can live with that,” Lapis decided maturely. That was a small price to pay, for a free life with the family he loved.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Erik was not happy with a new product, and when that happened, someone beneath him, usually several someones, ended up berated in as caustic and personal a manner as Erik could manage, which was neither healthy nor productive for anyone involved. Lapis had long ago accepted this; he hadn’t had any choice, really, as Erik’s slave, but also, Erik had never crossed the moral event horizon into violence, and that had always been Lapis’s benchmark.

Now that he was free and they were married, however, he felt he could be a little bolder in his pattern disruptions. Because there was a difference between “acceptable to someone who was used to being beaten” and “acceptable to a normal person,” and Lapis felt he had successfully transitioned to the latter category. So today, he pulled out his phone—the latest company model, naturally—and pointed the camera at Erik, from his position on the couch at the side of the design room.

“Do I come to _your_ house and steal your money and light it on fire in the middle of the living room?” Erik demanded of his team. “Because that’s what _you’re_ doing, when you turn out s—t like this! Why don’t you just call up every shareholder and tell them, ‘Hey, sorry you lost your money, but I just felt like making s—t today! No biggie, right?’ All of your names are going in the next quarterly report, names _and_ pictures, as the S—t Team who couldn’t get the f-----g interface right, and—What the f—k are you doing?”

Erik had, by this point, noticed Lapis, and the younger man’s eyes flickered between real Erik and the one on his phone screen, trying to keep him in frame as he moved. “I’m filming your temper tantrum,” Lapis informed him tartly. “I’m going to sell it to TMZ.”

Erik blinked at him. “How much could you get for something like that?” he asked, successfully distracted.

“Well, I’m going to ask for five grand,” Lapis claimed, “but I don’t know if I’ll get it, because everyone already knows you can be kind of a jerk.”

Erik nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, you don’t have the surprise factor,” he agreed. He paused a moment longer. “Okay, I’m done,” he decided, heading to the couch to sit next to Lapis. “Let’s see what I looked like.” If the design team was smart, they would use this downtime to brainstorm some solutions.

“I’m emailing it to Grace first,” Lapis announced, “so you can’t delete it.”

Erik huffed at this lack of trust and snatched the phone away as soon as he could, replaying the video. “This is a bad angle for me,” he criticized. “And why is the lighting so bad? Chen! The light spectrum of this camera is f-----g terrible! You need to get that upgraded, stat!”

“I think it’s the lighting in _here_ ,” Lapis noted quickly, showing Erik some photos he’d taken in other locations. Because Chen had enough on his mind right now, like rethinking his entire career choice.

“Oh. Never mind, Chen!” Erik countermanded. “The camera’s fine. Fix the lighting in here, that should help reduce everyone’s stress levels. A more natural spectrum. That should be easier to fix, anyway,” he added pointedly.

“Yes, sir,” Chen replied dutifully.

“Do you think I sound kind of nasally when I yell?” Erik asked Lapis, playing the video again. “Maybe I should take voice lessons.”

“You could stop yelling,” Lapis suggested instead, and Erik rolled his eyes.

“ _That’s_ obviously not a viable solution,” he remarked.

At that moment the door to the design room burst open to admit Grace, who had the frazzled but determined appearance of someone expecting to put out a fire. She saw only Erik and Lapis quietly sitting on the couch, however, and the designers studiously hunched over their tables. She was not deceived by this, though, or by the innocent look Erik gave her.

“Hi, Grace. Did you need something?”

She stomped over to them, giving her best guilt-inducing teacher look. The effort was wasted on Erik, though. “What is this?” she hissed, holding up her phone with a freeze-frame of Erik’s tantrum on the screen.

“ _That_ is an example of the horrible lighting my designers have been laboring under,” Erik chose to describe. “Chen is going to fix the lights in here, and then I expect productivity will go _way_ up.” This was as much a threat as a prediction.

“Who else did you send this to?” Grace asked Lapis.

“No one—“

“We have to delete every copy, right now,” she insisted, and Lapis felt bad for giving her more stress.

“I’m sorry, Grace,” he said. “I was just messing with Erik—“

“What are you freaking out about?” Erik complained. “It’s fine. Do you think I sound nasally when I yell?”

“Erik, we don’t allow recording on company property,” Grace pointed out. “We have _fired_ people who were caught recording—“

Erik immediately turned to Lapis gleefully. “You’re fired!” he announced.

“You can’t fire me, I quit!” Lapis shot back playfully.

“Guys,” Grace interrupted, unamused by their banter, “we really need to delete that video right now.”

Lapis took his phone back and did as she asked. “There goes my five grand,” he sighed.

“Five grand from TMZ,” Erik proposed to Grace. “Does that seem like a fair price to you? I think it should be worth more. It had a visceral, ‘you are there’ kind of quality. You know, if we can increase the camera quality, add more stabilizers, maybe some software to easily adjust the lighting, people could make high-quality short films with very little experience. Anna! Carl! Are you listening to me?” Erik prompted. “YouTube’s already exploding, everyone and their grandmother takes home movies now—time to up the game for creative, deliberate content-making.”

“Content-making,” Grace muttered. “Do not make any content like this again, understand?”

“Yes, sorry, Grace,” Lapis replied contritely, and she marched out to her duties that they had interrupted.

“That wasn’t really what I meant by ‘content,’” Erik clarified. “I meant something fictional.”

“We’d need to boost phone memory, to accommodate more video,” Anna suggested.

“We could do a specialty model,” proposed Carl.

“No, if you have a specialty model, only specialists buy it,” Erik corrected, but in a much more reasonable tone. “This needs to be as easy to use as all the other phone functions and incorporated into the most common models.”

“Would we need new editing software, or does something already exist?” Lee asked the room at large, and suggestions began to fly as they started thinking and planning. Erik smiled benignly from his spot on the couch, overseeing the discussion, and Lapis noted the filming idea for the future. Except, he wouldn’t send the videos to Grace anymore, that was just asking for trouble.

~*~*~*~*~*~

_~*~*~ Lapis@39 ~*~*~_

Erik feared he was out of his depth. The audience was hostile, willful, downright obstinate. His key assistants were nowhere to be found. And he was absolutely, positively not allowed to yell at anyone.

That seemed so unfair, especially when they were yelling at _him_.

 _What_ they were yelling, exactly, was hard to figure out, toddlers not being the most articulate people in the world. All he knew was that Flora was demanding they go forward, tugging on his left hand with all her might (which wasn’t much, fortunately), while Ada was refusing to continue, dragging on his right hand (which was surprisingly effective). And that left Erik stuck in the middle.

“Can we just—We’ll go to my office,” he tried to coax. “You want to go to Daddy’s office, don’t you?”

“No!” Ada wailed in despair, and collapsed on the floor to sob.

“Ogobble!” Flora replied, or something similar, desperately pointing in the opposite direction. When she found herself unable to move she began to scream and stomp her feet.

“Stop, stop, no screaming!” Erik told her. The high-pitched noise echoed around the open center of the building, causing employees on other floors to look around in alarm.

“How about the playroom?” Erik bribed. The establishment of on-site daycare was totally not coincidental with him acquiring children to put in it. “You like the playroom, with all the toys, don’t you? Let’s go to the playroom.”

“NO!” screamed Ada from the floor.

“NO!” screamed Flora, jumping up and down.

Well, at least they were in agreement on something.

Erik looked around at the people following him, because there were always people following him at work, but at the moment they were all staying at a safe distance from the tiny nuclear bombs tethered to him. “Who has the toy bag?” he demanded of them, prepared to bribe his way to freedom. Guilty looks pinged around the designers and mid-level executives, and no toy bag emerged. “You are all completely useless,” Erik informed them, but calmly, because he wasn’t supposed to yell around the children. “Go away. Someone call Lapis.” The crowd backed off a little farther.

Hopeful that help was on the way, Erik gave up on the idea of moving and decided to make a final stand here. “Okay, let’s just sit down,” he suggested, doing so. Ada was already flopped on the floor anyway, and Flora was naturally much closer to it than Erik. He settled onto the carpet near the clear barrier attached to the balcony railing, which had seemed like an unnecessary and unattractive addition to him at one point but, he now realized, prevented small people from tumbling to their doom through the central atrium.

“Let’s have a nice little sit-down,” he repeated persuasively, tugging Flora down onto his knee. “Come on, come over here,” he added to Ada, hooking her with his other arm. They seemed very unhappy being in his presence and squirmed incessantly.

Lapis often suggested distraction. “Look at all those people down there,” Erik pointed out. “Don’t they look funny? Don’t they look small? Do you see Kevin at the desk there? Tell Kevin at the front desk to wave,” he ordered his acolytes. “Daddy’s going to do magic,” he promised. “Daddy’s going to make Kevin wave at you!” It took a few seconds longer than Erik would have preferred—toddler attention spans being what they were—but eventually Kevin at the front desk started waving.

“Look at that!” Erik pointed out, as if this was miraculous. Which it was, in that the twins grew more interested in waving back than in crying. “Look, he’s waving at you! Say, ‘Hi, Kevin!’”

“Aw viggle!” the girls squawked, which was probably close enough.

Erik tried to think of what else he could make happen for their amusement. The smudge of red down below was Marcia, she had a nice singing voice, and the acoustics had to be pretty good in here. Or maybe people could coordinate a dance, something that could be seen from several floors up. Could he change the lights or put on music through the speakers? A way to do these things should exist, and would soon, once he was free.

Just when the girls had quieted down (and not a moment too soon, as the main lobby seemed to be rapidly emptying of people, for some reason), they began to get agitated again, and Erik realized Lapis was heading for them. “Look, it’s Papa!” he pointed out unnecessarily, but prevented the girls from racing to him, because people weren’t as careful as they should be, and often didn’t keep an eye out for toddlers running through the halls at work. “Finally, Papa! Where has Papa been? What could _possibly_ be more important than his two precious angels?” he needled, as Lapis sat down beside them.

The other man smirked. “Papa had _work_ , that _Daddy_ assigned,” he claimed, taking Ada on his lap. “I’m sure you were having a _wonderful_ time with Daddy! What was that, fifteen minutes on your own?” he asked Erik dryly. “That must be a new record.”

Flora scrambled to Lapis’s lap as well, stomping on some of Erik’s sensitive bits along the way. He did not feel abandoned, however, more like liberated. “I don’t understand what language they speak,” he complained, laying down on the floor to relax. “Can we build a translation device?”

“They’ll get better with time,” Lapis assured him, as he always did. “Remember when they couldn’t speak at all?”

“Yeah, that was nice.” Lapis’s look suggested this response was incorrect. But the children were at a frustrating transitional stage right now, too mobile to be ‘babies’ yet not articulate enough to be—well, ‘adults’ was too big of a jump, but decent conversational partners, at least.

“What has Daddy been doing?” Lapis was asking the girls. They burbled in response and he pretended he understood, which Erik did not think was wise—the key to learning was accurate feedback. “Did Daddy make people wave at you?” Someone must’ve squealed on Erik, and he glared at the crowd hovering on the edges. “Did Daddy make the lights blink, and disrupt everyone’s work?”

“I’m not convinced anyone really works around here,” Erik responded, from where he was stretched out on the floor. “If the last-quarter sales figures are to be believed.”

Lapis ignored this. “Do you want to go to the playroom?” he was asking the girls. “Shall we go play with the toys, and Miss Sunny?”

“I already tried that,” Erik informed him. “They seem happy here. We can stay here.”

“We’re in the middle of the hallway,” Lapis said, as if this refuted Erik somehow.

“It’s _my_ hallway.”

“People are taking the long way around to avoid us,” Lapis added, but he knew that wouldn’t bother Erik, either. “Who wants to go to the playroom?” he asked instead, and Ada and Flora started to squeal—happy squeals, not the angry ones Erik had elicited. The Scottish accent might be the key, Erik was beginning to suspect. It certainly worked on him, anyway. “Alright, let’s go to the playroom!” Lapis enthused, standing.

He took a moment trying to straighten the girls’ thick braids of wavy, dark hair; he was kind of obsessive about that, which was quite a judgment coming from Erik. Then Lapis turned to face the older man, who was still lounging on the floor. “I think Daddy doesn’t want to get up!” he claimed dangerously. “Can you help Daddy get up?”

“I can get up just—“ Too late, the girls took their cue to pounce on Erik, shrieking with laughter. That was okay; they were small, and it was satisfying to know that he could provide entertainment for them. _Sometimes_. Actually he was still kind of amazing they seemed to know who he was and weren’t afraid to be left alone with him. Raising kids with Lapis was, shockingly, totally different from just borrowing them from their mothers on occasion.

Erik finally stood, finding himself back in his original position with one twin tugging on each arm. At least they both wanted to go in the same direction this time, whichever direction Lapis pointed in.

“Can you take them to the playroom yourself?” Lapis had the temerity to suggest, glancing at his phone.

“No,” Erik replied immediately. “They’re happy _now_ ,” he allowed at Lapis’s look, “but the playroom is a dozen floors away! They’ll have changed their minds six times by then. Honestly, what else do you even have to do?” Erik went on, as they herded the girls towards the elevator.

Lapis huffed. “Seriously? I have an extensive—“ He started to show Erik his agenda on his phone.

Erik did not care, however. “Well, I’m the CEO, and _I_ find time to take my children to the playroom,” he pointed out loftily. “Surely _you_ can spare a few minutes.”

He had Lapis there, at least. “Alright,” the younger man enthused to the twins, “who wants to ride in the _elevator_?”

“Big step!” Erik added helpfully, when the girls didn’t cross the threshold. “Into the elevator!” They were leery of the quarter-inch gap they had to step over—caution was what had saved their ancestors from being eaten by tigers, Erik reminded himself, summoning patience. “Look at the big window! What can you see?”

Lapis smiled fondly at him as this encouraged the girls to race into the car; Erik felt rather proud of himself. Until the elevator doors almost snapped shut between them. That would _not_ have been a good thing, Erik decided, hurrying forward.

Erik’s followers vied to join them. “Take the stairs,” he dismissed, pushing the ‘door close’ button. “Ahh, much more peaceful,” he claimed, when it was just the four of them. Until the girls started to shriek again as they pointed out the window, like they were being plagued by demons. Well, at least he had Lapis here to help him this time.

~*~*~*~*~*~

_~*~*~ Alternate Universe, 2016 ~*~*~_

Erik had stayed remarkably on-script during the interview; his embellishments, charming and entertaining though they were, should not cause Grace to have another chat with him about ‘managing expectations,’ so Lapis was almost ready to relax where he stood off-stage, watching the business-segment host wrap up his spiel.

“Last question, Erik,” the host promised. “Who are you going to vote for, for President?”

Lapis froze in horror.

Fortunately Erik had no such problem. “I think _I_ should be President, don’t you?” he proposed, managing to sound both thoughtful and slightly crazy at the same time. “I guess it’s a little late to start this year.”

The host, sensing a potential viral moment, rushed along with it. “You would like to be President of the United States?”

“Well, actually, I’ve already got everything the President has,” Erik decided, “except a standing army. Which would be pretty cool.”

“That’s at least as good a reason to run as Donald Trump,” the host quipped.

“I know!” Erik agreed. “And I have more money.”

Lapis felt slightly light-headed and tried to remember to breathe. He knew it was no good trying to catch Erik’s eye, the man was a master at ignoring signals like that.

“So you think your management style would lend itself well to dealing with Congress, world leaders…?” the host asked leadingly, mining the vein of gold he’d struck as much as he could.

“I already deal with those people,” Erik pointed out. “The thing is, you don’t want someone _nice_ as President.” Lapis began to look around for the camera operator, planning to bribe or bully him into cutting. “You want someone who can look at the facts and make hard decisions, without getting distracted by people’s feelings.” The host was outright laughing now, which never dissuaded Erik. “You want someone who can go, ‘Yes. No. Nuke ‘em.’ That’s my first campaign commercial,” he realized, still completely straight-faced.

“You heard it here first, folks,” the host finally managed to say, as Lapis furiously texted Grace to warn her.

**

“And did you tell a reporter from _USA Today_ ,” Grace checked, her tone suggesting a complete denial was the only right answer, “that it didn’t matter who became President, because you were already more powerful?” Lapis nodded in the background, having witnessed that comment.

“Why would I be talking to a reporter from _USA Today_?” was Erik’s first response. “It _sounds_ like me, though. Seriously, is anyone surprised I said that?” He asked this of the room at large and several people shook their heads, even though they weren’t supposed to be listening in.

Noting this Grace drew Erik even more off to the side, Lapis trying to provide further privacy as a physical barrier. Unfortunately these things often had to be discussed wherever they found themselves, and Grace felt the urgency even more keenly after Erik’s little TV stunt. “We need to present an image that is open to working with any individual, any party—“

“Yes!” Erik replied, as if they were in agreement. “You told me to be non-partisan. You gave me a very stern lecture about it.”

“Yes—“

“This is me being non-partisan,” Erik concluded. “It doesn’t matter who’s President, we’re going to work within their system to produce innovative products people want, bring value to our shareholders, and support the American economy.”

“Yes, exactly!” Grace insisted. “ _That’s_ what you were supposed to say!”

“That _is_ what I said,” Erik claimed.

“That is _not_ what you said.”

“Well, it’s what I meant,” Erik replied, rolling his eyes. “I can’t give the exact same quote to everyone, I’d sound like a robot.”

“Erik—“

He was already moving on to the next topic, both mentally and physically, something on a screen having caught his eye. “Grace, me having a big ego is not news,” Erik dismissed, which was at least accurate. “What is this thing?” he demanded of a worker in disapproval, pointing at the screen. “This is not the design I approved.” The man stammered and began searching through files on the computer, which gave Erik enough time for reflection. “It _would_ be cool to have an army, though,” he added to Grace.

“No!” she called after him, before going to put out the next fire.


End file.
